Munir Said Thalib

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Munir Said Thalib

Munir Said Thalib (December 8, 1965 – September 7, 2004), affectionately known simply as 'Munir', was Indonesia's most famous Human Rights and anti-corruption activist. The founder of the Kontras human rights organisation and laureate of the Right Livelihood Award, Munir was assassinated in 2004 while travelling to Utrecht University to pursue a Master's degree in international law and human rights.^[1]

1 Political activist career
2 Assassination and aftermath
3 See also
4 Notes
5 External links

[edit] Political activist career

Of Arab descent,^[2] Munir studied law at Brawijaya University in Malang, East Java. He started his career in 1989 as a legal aid officer in the capital of East Java, Surabaya. Soon Munir had become Indonesia's top human rights campaigner and regularly spoke out for justice in the face of intimidation, including death threats. He was an especially vocal critic of Indonesia's military, accusing it of numerous human rights violations in East Timor and the troubled provinces of Papua and Aceh. The 38-year-old activist also accused them of running a criminal network involved in illegal tree logging and drug smuggling.

[edit] Assassination and aftermath

Munir was poisoned with arsenic on a flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam on September 7, 2004. He was travelling on state-owned airline Garuda Indonesia. It was concluded from Munir's autopsy and eye witnesses during the trial, that he had died two hours before arrival in Schiphol, Amsterdam. He took the arsenic during his flight transit in Singapore, or sometime near that time. In Singapore, Pollycarpus Priyanto, the prime suspect in Munir's trial, left the flight and then went back to Indonesia. Originally he departed from Indonesia by dead heading, with a fake document which allowed him to fly on another flight which was not his scheduled flight. Munir began to suffer acute diarrhoea and bouts of vomiting shortly after his flight took off from Singapore to Amsterdam. The cabin crew immediately reported to the pilot in command that a passenger was sick -- a condition which had forced him to go to the restroom several times.^[3] Munir was treated by a doctor on board the plane but pronounced dead a short time before the plane landed at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport.

When the results of the autopsy were released two months later, on November 12, (the Netherlands Forensic Institute) revealed that Munir's body contained a level of arsenic almost three times the lethal dose. This was later confirmed by Indonesian police.

Three suspects - Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, a former pilot who allegedly gave up his business class seat to Munir during the flight, and two flight attendants. It is alleged that he (Priyanto) placed the arsenic in Munir's orange juice, upon orders from Garuda's chief executive at that time, Indra Setiawan. Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono proclaimed that he will make sure that Munir's killers are brought to justice.

In December 2005 Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto was found guilty of Munir's murder by an Indonesian court and sentenced to fourteen years' imprisonment. Munir's supporters claim that Priyanto was acting on orders and that this was not brought out during the court case.

In October 2006, the Supreme Court invalidated the conviction against Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, citing insufficient evidence.^[1] However, in April 2007 police presented new evidence to prosecutors implicating Priyanto.^[4]

In October 2007, former president of Garuda Indra Setiawan and his deputy Rohainil Aini face trial for providing Pollycarpus with fake documents to board Munir's flight from Jakarta to Singapore. They could face the death penalty if convicted.^[5] [1]