Team to name murderers of Munir

Team to name murderers of Munir

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government-sanctioned fact finding team assigned to assist
the police in the investigation of the death of Munir has
concluded its six-month mandate, and is set to submit a full
report to the President, which would include the names of people
it believes responsible in the murder of the country's most
acclaimed human rights activist.

The team will also recommend that police investigators carry
out further inquiries into key individuals to obtain legal facts.

"All facts, all evidence, all information that we have
obtained during a six-month term of investigation, as well as our
conclusions and recommendation on what the police ought to do as
a follow-up, will be reported to the President on June 23," the
team's deputy chairman Asmara Nababan announced during a press
conference at its office in Central Jakarta on Tuesday.

"We (the team) will not extend our term past June 23, because
the presidential decree mandates it. As of today, we have
concluded that we have a strong case, and expect the police to
finalize it and have it tried in a court of law," Asmara added.

Asmara further urged the President to issue a decree on the
establishment of a monitoring team to ensure that the police
would take the case seriously.

The team also said on Tuesday it would not fulfill an
invitation sent by the House of Representative's special
commission tasked with monitoring the probe over Munir's death,
arguing that "Munir's death should not be manipulated as a
political commodity."

The meeting was slated to be held late on Tuesday, and would
also feature former chief of the National Intelligence Agency
(BIN) A.M. Hendropriyono, who had previously ignored two
summonses from the fact-finding team, which wanted to question
the retired army general in connection with the death of Munir,
who was poisoned on board a Garuda plane in September last year.

Garuda pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, who is a suspect
in the case, has admitted that he worked in some capacity for
BIN. The murder of Munir took place at a time when Hendropriyono
was in charge of the agency.

Hendropriyono, as well as other BIN agents -- Maj. Gen. (ret)
Muchdi PR and Col. Bambang Irawan -- refused to speak with or
explain their alleged involvement to the fact-finding team.