Dossier links Indonesian intelligence to activist murder

JAKARTA (AFP) - Indonesian state prosecutors have compiled an array of fresh evidence that implicates the powerful state intelligence agency in the murder of a rights activist, according to a document obtained by AFP.

Munir Said Thalib, Indonesia's most prominent rights activist, was poisoned as he travelled from Jakarta to Amsterdam in September 2004.
He had made many enemies during the rule of dictator Suharto, and after his 1998 downfall.

In a plot worthy of a spy thriller, an off-duty pilot from the state-run airline Garuda Indonesia, who is accused of links to Indonesia's intelligence agency BIN, was convicted of slipping a lethal dose of arsenic into Munir's food or drink during his flight.

But in a move sparking international outrage, the Supreme Court last year overturned the verdict against Pollycarpus Priyanto, citing insufficient evidence.
A charge that the pilot used a falsified document to board the same Garuda flight as Munir, however, was upheld and he was jailed for two years, although he walked free shortly afterwards.

Now, amid escalating international pressure to find the culprits, state prosecutors are requesting a so-called judicial case review. This would see the Supreme Court reconsider its own decision, based on an admission of fresh evidence or any errors or consistencies in its verdict.

A dossier detailing the evidence is expected to be submitted to a lower court on Thursday, which will determine whether the request is admissible.
If the review goes ahead, the Supreme Court will hear testimony from a series of new witnesses that again points the finger at the pilot, Priyanto, but also finally links him to BIN, according to the dossier seen by AFP.

Connections between Priyanto and BIN have long been alleged -- the pilot made some 41 phone calls, for instance, to a senior BIN official around the time of the murder.
But the new evidence is tighter, said an optimistic Usman Hamid, a human rights worker with Kontras, an organisation founded by Munir, who has also seen the dossier.