More arrests likely in Garuda poison scandal
JAKARTA: Police have officially detained two new suspects in relation to the murder of human rights activist Munir Said Thalib (TravelMole Asia, April 12).
Police have also indicated that further arrests involving Garuda Indonesia staff are likely.
Munir was found dead September 7, 2004, on the GA 974 Garuda flight to Amsterdam, via Singapore.
The former head of Indonesia’s national airline Indra Setiawan, and the secretary to Garuda’s chief pilot, Rohaini Aini, were arrested in connection with the alleged poisoning of Munir during a flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam via Singapore.
The pair has been accused of falsifying documents allowing another pilot blamed for the arsenic poisoning of Munir to travel on the flight.
An autopsy conducted by Dutch authorities found excessive amounts of arsenic in Munir’s body, indicating that he was murdered on the one-hour leg of the flight from Jakarta to Singapore.
Munir was a critic of Indonesia’s military, accusing it of rights violations in the troubled provinces of Aceh and Papua and of running a network involved in illegal logging and drug smuggling.
The Jakarta Post quoted national police chief detective Comr. Gen. Bambang Hendarso as saying new evidence had come to light which could again implicate Garuda pilot Pollycarpus Budi Haripriyanto, who was flying with Munir on the date of his death.
The Supreme Court overruled an earlier verdict of 14 years imprisonment for Pollycarpus’s involvement in Munir’s death, sentencing him instead to two years in prison for forging his assignment letter to appear as an aviation security officer.
Ian Jarrett
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