Jakarta – The Fact Finding Team (TPF) investigating the death of Munir has found documents containing four plots to kill the human rights activist.

“It would be a great pity if these documents had been thrown away”, TPF chairperson Police Brigadier General Marsudhi Hanafi told journalists at police headquarters in Jakarta on Tuesday June 14.

In the first plot, Munir was to be killed by black magic. In the second, he would be killed while in his car. In the third Munir was to be murdered by putting poison in his food at the Kontras (Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence) or Imparsial (Indonesian Human Rights Watch) offices. The fourth was to murder him aboard an aircraft.

Hanafi said the first three plots failed but the fourth was able to be carried out. Munir died aboard a Garuda Indonesia Airlines flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam on September 7 last year.

While relating the third plot, Hanafi said when he was to be killed at the Kontras or Imparsial offices, the perpetrator planned to make use an inside person who would put poison in Munir’s food.

“The Kontras staff member was not aware they were being used”, said Hanafi without mentioning their name. The operation failed because Munir didn’t come into the office that day and it was called off.

According to Hanafi, this new information strengthens the suspicion that there was a conspiracy to murder Munir and that it was premeditated. The murder he said did not involve any specific institution but was committed by a ‘rogue’ individual utilising the resources of their institution.

The TPF has also discovered where the arsenic that was used to murder Munir was sold. “We have checked, in fact Lie Kian Gie is not a pharmacist, but an analyst or chemistry expert. We will be looking into Gie’s relationship with the place that sold the arsenic”, he said.

Lie Kian Gie sat next to Munir on the flight to Amsterdam. The findings will be handed over to police investigators to follow up. (Ant/OL-02)

[Translated by James Balowski.]