Jakarta – A new chapter opened in the Munir murder case Friday after the National Police submitted files on two new suspects to the Jakarta provincial prosecutor's office.
Former president director of national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia, Indra Setiawan, and the secretary to the Garuda chief pilot, Rohainil Aini, are both charged under Article 340 of the Criminal Code on premeditated murder.
Rohainil is also charged under Article 263 on forgery as she allegedly provided fake documents allowing acquitted suspect Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto to board Munir's flight under the pretense of being an aviation security officer.
Munir, founder of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence, died from arsenic poisoning on Sept. 7, 2004, on board a Garuda flight to Amsterdam, which included a stopover in Singapore.
"The prosecutor announced on Aug. 7 that the files were acceptable, so we handed them over today to the provincial prosecutor's office," National Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Bambang Kuncoko told reporters.
Indra's lawyer, Antawirya J. Dipodiputro, said that the charges against his client were baseless. "I don't think the police have strong grounds for these charges. He just issued a letter instructing Pollycarpus to serve as an aviation security officer, that was all," he said. He added that the letter had nothing to do with the murder.
Munir was known for his critical views on the Indonesian Military, accusing it of rights violations in the troubled provinces of Aceh and Papua, and for being involved in illegal logging and drug smuggling.
There have been widespread rumors that officials of the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) were involved in the murder, with cell phone call records showing a series of call from the agency to Pollycarpus and vice versa.
Antawirya said Indra had admitted in his police statement that he had received a letter from a senior BIN official instructing him to assign Pollycarpus as the aviation security officer on Munir's flight. "But the letter was lost along with his bag at a hotel," he said.
Bambang said the police would summon anyone implicated in the case, including BIN officials. "When the time is right, we will summon them," he said, adding that the cases of the three Garuda employees would be handled simultaneously as they were related to each other.
He said Pollycarpus's presence on the same flight as Munir while off-duty was strongly connected to the powers vested in the two other suspects.
The Pollycarpus case is currently being reviewed by the Supreme Court. In October 2006, the Supreme Court annulled the 14-year jail term handed to him by the Jakarta District Court in December 2005. Instead, the Supreme Court sentenced him to two years in jail for forgery. He was freed last December.
Pollycarpus was scheduled to attend the first session of the case review Thursday, but failed to appear due to ill health. The hearing has been rescheduled to Aug. 16.