SBY urged to push police to continue Munir murder probe
Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A group of human rights activists has asked President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to order the police to continue the investigation into the murder of noted human rights defender Munir in a bid to reveal the masterminds.
The group also asked the President to order the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) to conduct an internal investigation in response to rising speculation that former and active senior officials of the agency were involved in Munir's murder.
"The President rejected our prior proposal to establish a presidential team to monitor the performance of the police and BIN during the investigation of the Munir case.
"As a consequence, the President has to show his willingness to continue the investigation into this case by asking the National Police chief and the BIN chief to reveal the conspiracy behind the murder as earlier stated by the court," said Asmara Nababan, who is also former secretary-general of the National Commission on Human Rights, at a news conference.
He was referring to a verdict issued by the judicial panel at the Central Jakarta District Court in the recent trial of Garuda pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, who was found guilty of murdering Munir and forging documents to enable him to be on the Sept. 7, 2004 Garuda flight on which Munir was fatally poisoned during the Jakarta-Singapore leg of the trip to Amsterdam.
Pollycarpus was sentenced to 14 years in prison. The judicial panel also ordered law enforcers "to find the mastermind of the murder".
The judicial panel also said that top Garuda officials at the time were involved in falsifying travel documents for Pollycarpus. The court also said Pollycarpus contacted on several occasions via mobile phone a high-ranking official from BIN, Maj. Gen. (ret) Muchdi Purwoprandjono, prior to and after the murder took place.
"But as of today, the police have yet to summon them for investigation purposes," said another activist, Rachland Nashiddik, from human rights watchdog Imparsial.
Present during the news conference were Usman Hamid from the National Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), Hendardi from the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI) and Iskandar Sonadji from Kontras.
They were on the now-defunct government-sanctioned fact finding team that concluded that the September murder was a conspiracy involving top BIN officials.