GARUDA STAFFER ON TRIAL OVER POISONING CASE
The Australian - October 9, 2007A FORMER senior staff member of flagship airline Garuda Indonesia faces jail after a prosecutor accused her today of being an accessary to the murder of human rights activist Munir Said Thalib.
Prosecutor Poltak Manulang also accused Rohainil Aini, a former secretary to the company's chief Airbus aircraft pilot, of having issued a falsified document that aided in Munir's killing.
"Had (Ms Aini) not made the false document, then Polly would not have flown on that Garuda flight,'' Mr Manulang said, referring to Pollycarpus Priyanto, an off-duty Garuda pilot who was convicted - and later acquitted - of killing Mr Munir on board a Garuda flight.
The document assigned Mr Priyanto to board the same flight to Singapore as Mr Munir.
Mr Munir died on board the second leg of the Garuda flight a few hours before reaching Amsterdam in September 2004.
An autopsy by Dutch authorities found he had ingested a large amount of arsenic, leading police to suspect he had been poisoned during his journey.
Mr Priyanto had his conviction for the poisoning murder quashed last year by Indonesia's Supreme Court.
State prosecutors are seeking a judicial review into the case, aiming to have him jailed again.
A former Garuda director, Indra Setiawan, is being tried separately on the same charge of acting as an accessary to premeditated murder. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in jail.
Mr Setiawan earlier testified that in 2004 he received a letter from a senior officer at Indonesia's intelligence agency asking that Mr Priyanto be made a corporate security officer on Mr Munir's flight.
Mr Munir, an outspoken critic of the military, made many high-profile enemies both during and after the reign of Indonesian dictator Suharto. He died at the age of 38.
The Government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who was elected on an anti-corruption platform, has come under increasing pressure from activists to find and prosecute those behind Mr Munir's murder.
Source: The Australian - www.theaustralian.news.com.au