Aboeprijadi Santoso, Amsterdam – The third anniversary of the assassination of Indonesia's most well-known human rights activist, Munir Said Thalib, has seen the public at home and abroad still guessing how the fatal poisoning happened and was planned.

That public is however thinking much less about who did murder him and who the planner(s) were. But given the issue's possible political implications, the queries cannot be left unanswered for too long.

Munir, on board a Garuda flight, was found dead a few hours before he arrived at Amsterdam on Sept. 7, 2004. He was poisoned, it's thought, sometime after he entered the immigration zone at Jakarta airport, but most probably at Singapore's Changi. His killer used a massive, lethal dose of arsenic.

The tragedy might not have happened had a few things been done differently however.

The fact that Munir's plan to study in the Netherlands had been known for some time – and that he time and again canceled his departure – would have provided his murderers the time they needed to execute the crime.

According to early investigations (the TPF Munir), Munir's murderers had four different scenarios in mind. Strangely, however, their final plan was implemented clumsily. Munir's departure date of Sept. 6 had apparently come unexpectedly, so plans had to be rearranged, possibly improvised, hastily.

It was that plan, in any case, that has seen members or individuals associated with the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) implicated, although they have all denied this. The public now assumes the agency – or its officials – must somehow have played a key role.

Thanks to media reports, campaigns at home and abroad by Munir's widow and friends and recent UN officials' responses, this murder case is widely known and queries could potentially become a time bomb.

For more than two years, the police and judicial processes have achieved far too little to unravel the case. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said the case would be a "test of our history". But some have suggested that, should the President's administration fail the "test", his statement could work as a boomerang.

Significant changes have occurred, however, particularly in the way the police handled the case after the new Attorney General commissioned a new police investigative team. The result has been encouraging, but like an arrow that was released, we know, or assume, it was released in the correct direction. But we cannot know whether it will arrive at the right target.

Optimists would let the law take its course. But suspicion abounds, given the distorted legacy of the rule of law and alleged infiltration of the intelligence apparatus within the police and judicial institutions.

The Munir case may remain politically delicate and is likely to become an issue that would taint the images of some powerful figures. It may even jeopardize their positions, as the country is about to prepare new laws for parliamentary and presidential elections in 2009.

There is nothing new about games the intelligence agencies play in such cases, given the interconnectedness with state and political processes between the military and police apparatuses during Soeharto's New Order.

BIN chief Syamsir Siregar once suggested a similarity between the predicament of the agency he led and the Army intelligence services during the later years of President Sukarno's rule – when they had to compete with the state intelligence agency BPI led by then pro-Sukarno foreign minister Dr. Soebandrio.

One can only guess what Syamsir really meant. In any case, it points to possible shadow games with some interests that may intervene the present politico-judicial processes. As Munir's friends and other rights activists recently urged, it's time to reform the bewildering elements of intelligence within the military, in particular the BIN agency itself, to safeguard the country.

General elections today may no longer be the "elections of generals" they used to be during Soeharto days, but Munir's critical attitude against some military institutions is an important reminder.

In 1997, Munir became prominent because of his tireless efforts to deal with cases of missing activists. Now, as he himself became the victim of mysterious assassination, the Munir tragedy should mark a defining moment for the struggle to clean up the state.

And questions need to be answered – why was Munir targeted, why arsenic, why a flight to Europe and why precisely in (early) September 2004? No doubt, in all of these, full and open cooperation by BIN and BIN personnel are indispensable.

Ironically, state intelligence agencies have remained untouched by the civil society's pro-democracy waves of protest and reform since 1998. The struggle of civil societies that led to the fall of communist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1990s, has been marked, almost without exception, by protests targeting a state's secret polices and intelligence agencies.

Unfortunately, we needed the Munir tragedy to realize that such a revolution never really hit Soeharto's New Order.

[The author is a journalist in Amsterdam.]