Heru Andriyanto – The Attorney General's Office indicated on Thursday that it would likely request a Supreme Court review of the acquittal of former top intelligence official Muchdi Purwoprandjono on the charge of ordering the murder of human rights activist Munir Said Thalib.
Prosecutors believe Pollycarpus Priyanto, a former Garuda pilot who was sentenced to 20 years in jail for carrying out the September 2004 murder, did not act alone nor did he have a personal motive for what is widely believed to have been a political assassination.
"Munir was killed by Pollycarpus. The question is what for," said Abdul Hakim Ritonga, deputy attorney general for general crimes. He said that he believed someone else was behind the murder.
However, prosecutors cannot act on Muchdi's acquittal until they receive an official copy of the court verdict, Ritonga said.
"I have instructed the head of the South Jakarta Prosecutor's Office to ask for the copy from the Supreme Court. We need to learn the court's considerations in making the decision," he said.
Under the country's laws, requesting a case review at the Supreme Court requires the petitioner to present new evidence.
Choirul Anam, a senior member of the Committee for Action and Solidarity for Munir (Kasum), said in a recent interview with the Jakarta Globe that prosecutors had plenty of leads to find new evidence in the case.
"Just take one as an example: prosecutors are in possession of telephone conversation records between Muchdi and Pollycarpus on the days before and after the murder," Choirul said.
"Muchdi has denied the phone conversations, saying he was on duty in Malaysia. I think it won't be difficult for the AGO to use its resources to prove whether Muchdi was in Malaysia at that time."
Munir, the founder of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), died of arsenic poisoning aboard a Garuda Indonesia plane en route to Amsterdam.
Pollycarpus, who was on the same flight as an aviation security officer but disembarked in Singapore, was convicted of administering a fatal dose of arsenic in Munir's drink.
Former Garuda president Indra Setiawan and former flight attendant Rohainil Aini were each sentenced to one year in jail as accessories to the murder.
But prosecutors failed to convict retired Army general Muchdi, who came under fierce criticism from Munir and Kontras as the head of the Army's Special Forces (Kopassus) over the kidnapping of students and activists in 1997-98.
Prosecutors earlier told the court that Muchdi ordered the murder of Munir in retaliation for the criticism. They said Muchdi was dismissed from the elite military unit following criticism of his human rights record, and later used his power as deputy chief of the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) to orchestrate the assassination by recruiting Pollycarpus.
On Dec. 31, 2008, the South Jakarta District Court acquitted Muchdi of all charges on the grounds that prosecutors had failed to prove motive.
In June, the Supreme Court turned down an appeal by prosecutors challenging Muchdi's acquittal. The remaining legal option for prosecutors to pursue Muchdi's conviction is by requesting a case review.