Team questions Garuda's commitment in Munir probe

Team questions Garuda's commitment in Munir probe

Eva C. Komandjaja
The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

A fact-finding team helping the police investigate the death of
prominent human rights activist Munir questioned on Monday
national flag carrier Garuda's commitment to support the much-
demanded probe.

The team accused the airline of being uncooperative and
concealing key information about last year's death of Munir, thus
slowing down the investigation process.

Munir, who had staunchly criticized human rights records of
security personnel including the military and police, died of
arsenic poisoning on board a Garuda flight to Amsterdam from
Jakarta on Sept. 7 last year.

Last Tuesday, Garuda canceled the plan to begin reconstructing
the scene of Munir's death as part of the investigation to find
suspects. Company officials were quoted as saying the
cancellation was because some crew members were busy on that day.

After a two-hour closed-door meeting at the National Police
Headquarters between the team and Garuda officials on Monday, the
team chaired by Brig. Gen. Marsudi Hanafi announced it had found
many discrepancies in the information provided by company
officials.

"Firstly, Garuda Indonesia did not conduct an internal
investigation of the death as it had promised to us. This is a
violation of Aviation Law No. 15/1992 and the Warsaw convention
on aviation," Marsudi said.

According to the law and the convention, an airline must take
responsibility for a death onboard. That includes investigating
its own management over the death.

"We also found that Garuda officials were very defensive in
the meeting and seemed to be trying to cover up something,"
Marsudi said.

He said another discrepancy was found in an assignment letter
given to "a Garuda employee" aboard the flight, where Munir was
poisoned.

Marsudi refused to mention the employee's name. However, it is
believed he was referring to Garuda pilot Pollycarpus, who
offered Munir a seat in the business class during the Jakarta-
Singapore flight.

Previously, a Garuda official had claimed that Pollycarpus was
on board the plane as an aviation security officer. However, this
was initially not backed up by any documents.

According to a police source, the assignment letter was only
issued only after the cause of Munir's death was publicly
revealed.

Garuda president director Indra Setiawan, who attended
Monday's meeting, denied these allegations, saying he had
assigned Pollycarpus to assist another unit at his company before
the murder case.

"Yes I did sign the letter but I had assigned him way before
it (the murder) took place. It's normal to assign an employee to
assist another unit, isn't?" he said.

Some reports have linked Pollycarpus with the State
Intelligence Agency (BIN), saying he was recruited by the agency
to perform "special missions" for Garuda.

However, Indra denied all knowledge of this possibility. "I
only know him as our pilot. That's all."