Jakarta – Indonesia's president has ordered a probe into last year's poisoning of human rights activist Munir after a court convicted a pilot for the murder.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono also urged government bodies to cooperate in the investigation, he said, amid suspicions the national intelligence agency was involved.

"The president has ordered the national police chief to thoroughly investigate the Munir case so that things can be completely unravelled," spokesman Andi Mallarangeng said.

"It is not easy to solve a crime of this nature. The president has asked government agencies to work together to help police so that our legal system can work well," he said.

A Jakarta court on Tuesday jailed Pollycarpus Priyanto for 14 years for lacing Munir's food with a lethal dose of arsenic aboard a Garuda Indonesia flight last year.

The activist, 38, was known as a fearless rights campaigner. He provided legal counsel for victims of officially-sanctioned violence and repression during president Suharto's more than three decades rule, and also worked to expose military involvement in human rights violations during East Timor's 1999 independence vote.

Activists see the case as a test of Yudhoyono's dedication to ensuring the rule of law as Indonesia emerges from the shadow of the Suharto era, when the military could eliminate its enemies with impunity. The president pledged after his death to do everything in his power to solve the crime.

Priyanto, a Garuda Indonesia pilot who was on the plane as a passenger on the day of the murder, has denied any wrongdoing and is appealing the sentence.

The judges said there was evidence that in plotting the killing, the pilot made frequent telephone contact with a mobile phone registered to a former deputy chief of the state intelligence agency, Muchdi Purwopranjono.

Judges said the motive was to stop Munir from criticising the government and the military, and urged authorities to continue the probe.

A government-sanctioned team that investigated Munir's death said it had evidence that Priyanto had frequent telephone contact with members of the intelligence agency before and after the murder.