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.