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."