December 29, 2008
With the right personnel and the backing of Indonesia’s leadership, the police rose to the challenge and arrested a senior official thought to be untouchable. Now that some witnesses have suddenly changed their stories, all eyes turn to the judges to see if they can withstand the pressure of powerful forces in the security services.
Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch
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Indonesia: A Year Later, Munir’s Killers Evade Justice
Indonesia: No Justice Two Years After Munir’s Death
Indonesia: Acquittal Bolsters Impunity for Munir’s Murder
Indonesia: Rights Champion Dies
(New York, December 29, 2008) – The verdict expected on December 31, 2008, in the trial of a senior intelligence official charged with the murder of the Indonesian human rights lawyer Munir is an important test of the independence of the Indonesian judicial system, Human Rights First and Human Rights Watch said today.
Retired Major General Muchdi Purwopranjono, a former deputy at the State Intelligence Agency (known as Badan Intelijen Negara, or BIN) and the former head of the army’s abusive special forces unit, Kopassus, has been charged with premeditated murder in the killing of Munir. Munir was poisoned with arsenic, leading to his death on a commercial airliner en route to the Netherlands in September 2004. Two men have been convicted in connection with the killing, but the trial of Muchdi is the first related to planning and ordering the crime. However, since the fall of Soeharto in 1998, no Indonesian general has been successfully prosecuted for a human rights abuse.
Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First have followed the five-month trial closely, and representatives have observed several sessions.
“If Indonesia is to move beyond its authoritarian past, the justice system must show that generals are not above the law,” said Matt Easton, director of the Human Rights Defenders Program at Human Rights First. “Investigators, prosecutors, and the courts must be ready to go where the evidence and the law lead them.”
Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First said that the trial of a senior security official is an important event in Indonesia, given the long-term lack of accountability by members of the armed forces and intelligence services, dating back to the Soeharto era.
A presidential commission, a reinvigorated police investigation, and the murder trial of a pilot named Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto uncovered evidence tying the murder to BIN. Based on this evidence, which includes phone records, documents, and sworn statements by intelligence agents, Muchdi was arrested in June. His trial began in August.
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RIZAL
