Munir Said Thalib

Top-level Indonesian State Intelligence Agency (BIN) officials were implicated in Munir’s murder. The chief of police at the time, Sutanto, allegedly knew of the BIN involvement. A BIN deputy chairman, Muchdi Purwopranjono, was tried and acquitted for the murder in what has been internationally condemned as a “sham trial”. Prosecutors accused Muchdi of ordering the killing out of anger over Munir’s criticisms of his Kopassus leadership. Prior to the murder Priyanto made at least 26 calls to Muchdi, and a number of calls to a confidential BIN line.

A United States diplomatic cables leak alleged that former BIN chief A. M. Hendropriyono “chaired two meetings at which Munir’s assassination was planned” and that a witness at those meetings told police that “only the time and method of the murder changed from the plans he heard discussed; original plans were to kill Munir in his office.” When Hendropriyono was first appointed to the BIN it was bitterly condemned by Munir, who was guiding an investigation into Hendropriyono’s role in human rights abuses for a prosecution.

Muchdi and Hendropriyono were both summoned for questioning by a presidential fact-finding team, but they refused to comply with the investigation. Recommendations by the team for Hendropriyono’s prosecution were completely ignored by the police and the attorney general’s office.

In November 2014, Pollycarpus was released from prison.

In 2014, Hendropriyono admitted to journalist Allan Nairn that he bore “command responsibility” for the assassination, and he was ready to accept being put on trial.

In 2013 a museum in Malang was opened in his honour.

In October 2007, Indra Setiawan and his deputy, Rohainil Aini, faced trial for providing Pollycarpus with fake documents to board Munir’s flight from Jakarta to Singapore. They would have faced a possible death penalty. They were both convicted and imprisoned for Munir’s murder, and have appealed their convictions.

In 2007, a Jakarta court found that Garuda was negligent in refusing to perform an emergency landing, and ordered the company to pay 600 million rupiah in compensation to Munir’s widow. When Garuda appealed this decision, the supreme court increased the compensation to an undisclosed amount. Garuda then failed to pay the compensation.

In October 2006, the Supreme Court of Indonesia invalidated the conviction against Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, citing insufficient evidence. However, in April 2007, police presented new evidence to prosecutors implicating Priyanto.

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.

Munir was poisoned with arsenic on a flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam on 7 September 2004. He was travelling on state-owned airline Garuda Indonesia. It was concluded from Munir’s autopsy and eyewitnesses during the trial that he had died two hours before arrival in Schiphol International Airport. He took the arsenic during his flight transit in Singapore, or sometime near that time.

In Singapore, Pollycarpus Priyanto, a Garuda pilot at the time and the prime suspect in Munir’s trial, left the flight and then went back to Indonesia. Originally he departed from Indonesia by deadheading, with a fake document which allowed him to fly on another flight which was not his scheduled flight. Munir began to suffer acute diarrhea and bouts of vomiting shortly after his flight took off from Singapore to Amsterdam. The cabin crew informed the pilot in command that a passenger was sick, and a doctor who happened to be on the plane was asked to provide medical assistance. However, Munir died around two hours before the plane landed at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport.

In 2001, while he was investigating Kopassus’s role in kidnappings, a bomb package was delivered to his house.

Munir was born into a family of Hadhrami Arab and Javanese origins, from Kathiri. He studied law at Brawijaya University in Malang in the province of East Java, and later started off his career in 1989 as a legal aid officer in the East Java provincial capital, Surabaya. Munir Said Thalib became one of Indonesia’s leading human rights campaigners and faced intimidation, including death threats. He accused the Indonesian military of human rights violations in East Timor and in the troubled provinces of Papua and Aceh, and accused them of running a criminal network involved in illegal tree logging and drug smuggling.

Munir Said Thalib (8 December 1965 – 7 September 2004) was an Indonesian activist. The founder of the Kontras human rights organisation and laureate of the 2000 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. He is one of Indonesia’s most famous human rights and anti-corruption activists.