Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta – A retired Indonesian spy chief controversially acquitted of murdering a human rights lawyer is pursuing a criminal defamation case against one of the lawyer's successors – for accusing him of murder.
The poisoning death of Munir Said Thalib five years ago this week aboard a Garuda airlines flight to The Netherlands became a defining issue during President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's first term.
Shortly after being inaugurated, Dr Yudhoyono formed a fact-finding team to investigate the affair, declaring it a test of "whether Indonesia had changed" since the era of former dictator Suharto.
Now Munir's killing, which involved the national intelligence agency, serving and former military officers and senior Garuda figures, looks set to be one of the main issues hanging over into Dr Yudhoyono's second five-year stint as president, after he is sworn back in to office next month.
The powerful fact-finding team, which has been disbanded, found little other than questions over whether the right people had been convicted in the case.
Yesterday, one of its members, Usman Hamid, who now heads the human rights organisation Munir founded, was questioned by police after being charged with criminal defamation in a case brought by former spy agency deputy head Muchdi Purwoprandjono.
Mr Muchdi's lawyer said the case revolved around Mr Usman's shouts of "murderer, murderer" during the retired general's trial last year for arranging Munir's killing. "Our view is that Usman Hamid does not respect the law," lawyer Rusdiyanto Matulatua told The Australian.
Mr Usman was not the only one bandying about accusations: others included Munir's widow, Suciwati, who in 2005 was named one of "Asia's Heroes" by Time magazine for her tireless campaign to bring her husband's killers to justice.
Appearing on national television this week in a program commemorating Munir's anniversary, Mrs Munir admitted she would have preferred to have been the one who died because the groundbreaking activist "could have achieved so much more".
Mr Muchdi's surprise acquittal last year came after judges in the murder case refused to admit crucial evidence, including a series of phone calls between him and the man who carried out the deed, Garuda pilot Pollycarpus Priyanto.
The Supreme Court upheld Mr Muchdi's acquittal two months ago – a remarkably quick turnaround for the country's less-than-transparent peak legal forum – prompting accusations by pro-Munir lobby groups that the higher court had "ignored the public interest".
The two key figures to do time over the murder – Pollycarpus, who laced Munir's on-board drink with arsenic and received 20 years' prison, and former Garuda CEO Indra Setiawan, sentenced to one year – have been widely regarded as political pawns. But bringing the real perpetrators to justice could involve reaching far too deeply into the Jakarta establishment, critics fear.
Evidence in the original trial suggested Mr Muchdi was motivated by revenge, after Munir proved the general had been involved in the disappearance of anti-government activists during the months leading up to Suharto's fall in early 1998.
That revelation led to Mr Muchdi being sacked as head of the army's elite Kopassus special forces squad after less than two months in the job.
Another figure implicated, although not brought to task, was Mr Muchdi's boss at the time of the murder, former intelligence agency chief A.M.Hendropriyono. Some suspect the conspiracy could reach as high as Dr Yudhoyono.
Munir's supporters vowed to fight on. "We still believe Muchdi murdered Munir," said one, Chairul Anam, after Mr Usman was released by police yesterday.