Jakarta – Rights activists in Yogyakarta have urged President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to instruct the police to get to the bottom of the murder of Bernas Daily journalist Fuad Muhammad "Udin" Syafruddin, who was killed in August 1996.

According to a press statement from the Yogyakarta Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) made available to The Jakarta Post on Saturday, 17 years of support from activists demanding that police solve the case had yet to reveal any clue as to who was behind the killing.

In a similar move in early May, dozens of rights organizations, including Local and National Press Legal Aid (LBH Pers), the Media Legal Defense Initiative, the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) and the Southeast Asian Press Alliance, signed a petition to report the case to the United Nations' special rapporteur on freedom of expression.

Udin was beaten by an unidentified person(s) at his house in Bantul, Yogyakarta, on Aug. 13, 1996, and died at Yogyakarta Bethesda Hospital three days later without ever regaining consciousness.

As a journalist, Udin was known for his reports on abuses of authority that were allegedly committed by Sri Roso.

Udin wrote a report about Sri Roso allegedly bribing the Dharmais Foundation (owned by then president Soeharto) for his reelection as Bantul regent. Sri Roso, who was a colonel with the Indonesian Army, was tried in a military court.

The police insisted a love affair was behind Udin's murder. They arrested Dwi Sumadji, alias Iwik, as the chief suspect in the murder, which they thought was related to a love affair with Udin's wife, but the court acquitted Dwi due to a lack of evidence. The police never continued the case and argued they did not have any new evidence to do so.

The Indonesian Ombudsman (ORI) visited the Yogyakarta Police in April. The police said the toughest challenge to revealing Udin's murderer(s) was accessing Sri Roso's dossier. The ORI then sent a letter to the Jakarta II High Military Court asking it to allow the Yogyakarta Police to access the dossier.

As a response to the letter, according to ORI, the Jakarta II High Military Court sent a letter to the Yogyakarta Police inviting them to fetch a copy of the dossier of then Bantul regent Sri Roso and other related documents.

The ORI applauded the response, saying that the dossier could be used to reveal the facts about Udin's murder.

Responding to the development, Yogyakarta Police spokesperson Adj. Sr. Comr. Anny Pudjiastuti said her side would follow up the letter from the high military court.

The statement the Post received urged the Yogyakarta Police to study Sri Roso's and Iwik's dossiers to find an initial lead to reveal the murder. (hrl)