Dean Yates and Ade Rina, Jakarta – An Indonesian court jailed an off-duty pilot for 14 years on Tuesday over the murder of the country's top human rights activist during a flight on the national carrier Garuda last year.
Chief judge Cicut Sutiarsa told the court that Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto put arsenic in noodles served to Munir Thalib because he opposed the democracy hero's criticism of the military and the national intelligence agency.
A president-appointed team disbanded in June had recommended further investigation of the Munir murder, saying it had found government intelligence agency officials were implicated, a charge agency leaders have denied.
Human rights groups have said the trial was a litmus test of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's promise to build a more accountable Indonesia after decades of authoritarian rule.
Judge Sutiarsa said Priyanto put arsenic in noodles served to Munir on the Jakarta-Singapore leg of a flight to Amsterdam in September 2004. He died before reaching Amsterdam.
"The court rules the defendant Pollycarpus has legally and convincingly been proven to have taken part in the planned killing," Sutiarsa told the court.
Priyanto has said he was the victim of a conspiracy. "I reject all the charges and this verdict. I did not do it," Priyanto screamed as his wife wept in the packed courtroom. He said he would appeal. Prosecutors had demanded Priyanto be jailed for life for killing the outspoken government and military critic.
A Garuda Indonesia pilot himself, Priyanto was on an assignment supervising security on the Jakarta-Singapore leg of Munir's flight. He has admitted to giving his business-class seat to Munir during that leg.
On December 12, Priyanto told the court he did not kill Munir but has not said who he believes might be behind the plot.
"What makes Munir so significant for me that I had to kill him on a Garuda plane... my workplace?" he said during that court session. "I do not believe Munir was killed by poison on the plane. It is only an invention to put me here as a defendant."
Prosecutors failed to verify the alleged link with intelligence officials during the trial and suggested Priyanto acted with the help only of two other Garuda crew and plotted the assassination because he did not like Munir's politics.
But the judge noted Priyanto had spoken numerous times on the telephone to a senior official of the national intelligence agency BIN before and after Munir's murder.
Munir's wife Suciwati told reporters she believed the pilot was just a minor player in the murder. "Polly (Priyanto) is just a small part of a conspiracy... The connection should be found," she told reporters at the court.
Former human rights minister and now activist Hasballah Saad said he not believe the pilot was acting alone. "There must be others. It's just a coincidence that he was brought to court. Unfortunately, the fact-finding team was disbanded before it finished its work," he told Reuters.
Munir grabbed national attention as repression of anti-government activists eased after the authoritarian rule of President Suharto ended in 1998.
He was an outspoken critic of the military and its heavy-handed methods in quashing dissent and separatists in hotspots such as Aceh and Papua provinces.
(Additional reporting by Telly Nathalia)