Heru Andriyanto – Activists on Tuesday said the Attorney General's Office should now have enough ammunition to launch further legal action against former top intelligence official Muchdi Purwoprandjono, who two years ago was acquitted of charges of ordering the murder of renowned rights activist Munir Said Thalib.
"We demand that the AGO lodge a case review request [to the Supreme Court] because they now have secured new evidence against... Muchdi," said Rizki, the coordinator of a group of protesters outside the AGO office who called themselves Sahabat Munir (Munir's Friends).
Rizki said the new evidence included a recorded telephone conversation between Muchdi and Pollycarpus Priyanto, a former pilot who has been convicted of fatally poisoning Munir on a Garuda Indonesia flight bound to Amsterdam in September 2004.
Retired Army General Muchdi was the deputy chief of the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) when Munir was murdered. Prosecutors accused him of ordering the murder to avenge Munir's strong criticism of the Army's elite Special Forces unit Kopassus for allegedly kidnapping and murdering rights activists. Muchdi, now a politician, was also a former Kopassus commander.
Prosecutors showed evidence of call data records between Muchdi and Pollycarpus in the days before and after the murder but failed to provide the recorded conversations.
However, the South Jakarta District Court acquitted Muchdi of all charges due to a lack of evidence on New Years Eve in 2008 and the verdict was upheld by the Supreme Court.
"In a subsequent discussion with police and prosecutors, we were told that they had secured the recorded phone chats that could be used as a 'last weapon' against Muchdi in the case review," said Usman Hamid, who replaced Munir as the chairman of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) after the murder.
A presidentially appointed fact-finding team that worked independently of police has already accused Muchdi of masterminding Munir's murder and recruiting Pollycarpus as his accomplice.
Another key consideration that could help prosecutors in the case review proposal was the recent Supreme Court ruling that convicted national carrier Garuda of negligence and ordered the airline and other respondents to pay Rp 3.5 billion ($400,000) in damages to Munir's widow, Suciwati, the group said.
"The negligence of Garuda Indonesia has been uncovered through a retroactive appointment letter for Pollycarpus [to join the flight]. Linking this to the court verdict that convicted Pollycarpus of murdering Munir, it is certain that Garuda's negligence has been intentional," Rizki said.
"Pollycarpus left for Singapore [on the same flight as Munir] on BIN's recommendation with the mission of murdering Munir."
Pollycarpus, who is serving 20 years in jail, was an off-duty pilot on the day of the murder. He was found guilty of administering a lethal dosage of arsenic into Munir's drink, reportedly during a stopover in Singapore.
Sahabat Munir also demanded that, this time around, the AGO form a team of "credible and professional" prosecutors to pursue the final legal avenue against Muchdi.
In the previous trial, the prosecution was led by controversial prosecutor Cirus Sinaga, who is now a suspect linked to the major graft scandal of former taxman Gayus Tambunan.