Jakarta – Frustrated with the government's handling of the murder of her husband, human rights campaigner Munir, the activist's widow Suciwati sought political support from the House of Representatives on Friday.

Munir's widow called on the House to use its political clout to press President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to take concrete actions to unravel the mysteries surrounding her husband's death.

"We hope the House can exert pressure on the government. We are tired of being given empty promises. I want to believe that the system still offers ways to solve the murder, but we have been led to distrust the system," Suciwati told a press conference at the House.

She said her own efforts to lobby the President have been fruitless. "I have spoken to the President through his spokesman, but what I got in response was that he told me not to criticize the government too much," Suciwati said, referring to presidential spokesman Andi Alfian Mallarangeng.

Usman Hamid, executive director of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), who has been campaigning with Suciwati to call attention to the case, said the House could play an important role in moving the investigation forward.

He said the President's seeming inaction and a recent Supreme Court decision to quash the murder conviction of the sole suspect, Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, could happen only because the House was not exerting enough political pressure.

Usman suggested the House immediately form a working committee to assist in the government's efforts to discover who ordered Munir's murder. "But first, the House should publish the results of its own investigation into Munir's murder," he said.

A government-sanctioned fact-finding team investigated the murder of Munir, who was found dead on board a Garuda Indonesia flight to the Netherlands in 2004. Its findings have never been fully released to the public.

Usman and Suciwati called on the government to set up a new investigative team, however, rather than revive the now-defunct effort. On Wednesday the National Police named Brig.Gen. Surya Dharma Nasution as the new chief of the revived team. "The old team didn't achieve anything or contribute anything that could resolve the murder case, so why decide to revive it?" Usman said.

Answers about the government's commitment to solving Munir's death proved to be difficult to come by Friday, with Yudhoyono remaining mum on the issue. The President walked away when journalists asked what further instructions he would give to police probing the murder. Minutes before, the President gave lively answers about progress in the planned deployment of Indonesian peacekeeping forces to war-torn Lebanon.

Noted lawyer Asmara Nababan suggested that a new team could jump-start its investigation by focusing on telephone conversations, allegedly between Pollycarpus and the former deputy head of the National Intelligence Agency (BIN), Muchdi PR before and after Munir's death. Muchdi and BIN have denied any involvement in the case.

"We suspect that the 41 telephone conversations concerned field reports on Munir's assassination. That is why the BIN turned down a request to disclose them," said Asmara, a former member of the government-sanctioned fact-finding team.