Achmad Nasrudin Yahya, Jakarta – Indonesian Human Rights Watch (Imparsial) Executive Director Gufron Mabruri hopes that the government will immediately investigate and solve the case of alleged human rights violations in the assassination of renowned human rights defender Munir Said Thalib.
"The government of course has an obligation to solve this case, especially in following up on the results of the Munir case Fact Finding Team investigation", said Mabruri when contacted by Kompas.com on Tuesday August 16.
According to Mabruri, the parties suspected of being the masterminds behind Munir's assassination are still not been indicted.
"Jokowi [President Joko Widodo] must back up his political pledge, especially since there is less than two years left of his term in office", said Mabruri.
Mabruri said that Imparsial, as part of the Solidarity Action Committee for Munir (KASUM) is also urging the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) to immediately declare the Munir case as a gross human rights violation.
"Because the authority to determine this does indeed lie with Komnas HAM", said Mabruri.
Komnas HAM decided to form a gross human rights violations ad hoc investigation team into the Munir murder case during a plenary session on Friday August 12.
"One of the decisions agreed to was the formation of a Gross Human Rights Ad Hoc Investigation Team into the Murder of Munir Said Thalib based on Law Number 26/2000 on Human Rights Courts", said Komnas HAM Chairperson Ahmad Taufan Damanik in a press release on Saturday August 13.
Damanik said that the Monitoring and Investigation Team had already completed a report on Munir's murder. "The Monitoring and Investigation Team into the Munir Said Thalib Murder Case has already completed its report on the case", said Damanik.
Munir was murdered on September 7, 2004 on Garuda Indonesia Airlines flight GA-974 from Jakarta to Amsterdam via Singapore.
A report in the September 8, 2004 Kompas Daily said that Munir died around two hours before the flight landed at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam, at 8.10 am local time.
The autopsy results showed that there was arsenic in the body of the former Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) executive board chairperson.
Legal proceedings against the people suspected of being involved in Munir's murder have been conducted.
A court sentenced off-duty Garuda Airlines pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto – who was also cited as an agent with the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) – to 14 years in prison. Priyanto died of Covid-19 on October 17, 2020.
In addition to this, the court also sentenced former Garuda Indonesia Executive Director Indra Setiawan to one year in prison for assigning Priyanto to the same flight as Munir.
A number of facts during the trial cited the alleged involvement of the BIN in the murder, but no senior BIN officials have been found guilty by the courts. On December 13, 2008, BIN deputy director Muchdi Purwoprandjono or Muchdi Pr who was a defendant in the case was acquitted of all charges.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Imparsial Minta Pemerintahan Jokowi Segera Ungkap Pelanggaran HAM Kasus Munir".]
