Desy Nurhayati, Jakarta – With the emergence of new evidence in the murder case of Munir Said Thalib, pressure is mounting for a thorough and rapid investigation of the circumstances surrounding the human rights activist's poisoning death.
To attract international attention to the case, activists are scheduled to hold a lecture in Utrecht, the Netherlands, on Aug. 13, campaigner Usman Hamid said Friday.
"This lecture is expected to uphold the support of the international community, including the United Nations and the European Union, (both of) which have closely monitored the progress of the investigation," Usman, from the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), told The Jakarta Post.
Usman plans to attend the lecture along with Munir's widow, Suciwati, and activist Asmara Nababan.
"The European Union commission has urged President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to resolve the murder. It has also put the case on its (list of) priorities (regarding) human rights violations," Usman said.
He said Utrecht lecture was part of the Reflection on three years of Munir's death movement held by activists to commemorate the third anniversary of Munir's death, which fell on Friday.
On Friday, as many as 1,000 activists grouped in the Solidarity Alliance for Munir and Democracy staged rally in Jakarta to honor the activist, who died of arsenic poisoning on board a Garuda Indonesia flight to Amsterdam on Sept. 7, 2004.
The protesters started from the Independence Monument in Central Jakarta and marched to the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) headquarters in South Jakarta.
Facts that have emerged in the Munir court sessions so far have pointed to BIN, and in particularly four of its high-ranking officials, as masterminding Munir's murder.
The officials, under wide scrutiny in the national media, are former BIN head AM Hendropriyono, BIN deputy head M. As'ad, first deputy Manunggal Maladi and fourth deputy Muchdi PR.
The alleged links between BIN and the murder include dozens of phone conversations between former Garuda Indonesia pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto – who was later convicted and then acquitted of Munir's killing – and Muchdi prior to the murder.
It was later also discovered that Garuda had allowed Pollycarpus to join Munir's flight after a direct request from BIN through Garuda's former president director Indra Setiawan. The request was allegedly made in writing, but the letter was recently reported to have been stolen.
This latest revelation emerged in court on Aug. 22 when prosecutors played a recorded phone conversation between Pollycarpus and Indra.
A man named Raden Mohammad Padma Anwar, or Ucok, told police under questioning that he was a BIN agent who had been ordered to bewitch Munir. Ucok has also testified he once saw Pollycarpus at the parking lot of BIN headquarters.
Another man named Sentot Waluyo has also been alleged to have been involved in a plot to kill Munir. BIN has denied Ucok or Sentot are agents of the organization and says it never wrote a request for Pollycarpus to be on Munir's flight.