Heru Andriyanto – The Attorney General's Office on Wednesday said a former airline employee who was sentenced to a year in jail for a minor role in the murder of renowned rights campaigner Munir Said Thalib, had already served her term.

Responding to rights groups who on Tuesday demanded the immediate imprisonment of the woman sentenced in January 2009, AGO spokesman Noor Rachmad told a press conference that "the convict, Rohainil Aini, was imprisoned on September 16, 2009, at the Tangerang Correctional Facility by prosecutors from the Central Jakarta office."

Several human rights groups including Sahabat Munir (Munir's Friend), Imparsial and Human Rights Working Group Indonesia visited the AGO to demand the imprisonment of Rohainil, the former chief secretary for pilots at Garuda Indonesia. She was found guilty in January 2009 of falsifying the assignment documents of Pollycarpus Priyanto, allowing the off-duty pilot to be on the same Amsterdam-bound flight as Munir on the day of the murder.

Pollycarpus, who at that time was originally assigned to join another flight to Beijing, is currently serving 20 years in jail for administering a lethal dose of arsenic into Munir's drink on the flight in September 2004.

Choirul Anam, deputy director of HWRG Indonesia and one of those who demonstrated in front of the AGO, said they would verify the office's claims.

He said he had been monitoring the case and knew of no imprisonment despite repeatedly asking AGO officials between 2009 and 2010 whether the convict had been put behind bars.

"They never provided clear answers. They always said 'we will check' but there was no confirmation that the imprisonment ever took place. Even if they have done the job, why did it take so long? Rohainil was convicted in early 2009 but the imprisonment began eight months later, if that's true."

The fact that no one outside the prosecutor's office knew about the imprisonment also underlined the lack of transparency in the case, he said.

"But the biggest problem is that we have directly met with senior AGO officials and we have sent them many letters asking about the case, yet there was never a clear answer stating that the convict had been imprisoned.

"Before Tuesday, we met Marwan Effendy, the deputy attorney general for internal supervision, in late 2010 and his answer was also 'we'll check,'" Choirul said. He said he would get to the bottom of whether Rohainil had actually served her term in prison.