Garuda chief faces investigation over activist's death

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ABC Online

Garuda chief faces investigation over activist's death. 24/03/2005. ABC News Online

[This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200503/s1330628.htm]

Last Update: Thursday, March 24, 2005. 9:36am (AEDT)
Garuda chief faces investigation over activist's death
Police in Indonesia say they will scrutinise the personal bank accounts of the outgoing director general of the Indonesian national airline Garuda as part of a continuing investigation into the death of a prominent human rights activist.

A spokesman for the Indonesian police says Indra Setiawan is also being interviewed about Mr Munir's death.

Mr Munir died of arsenic poisoning on a Garuda flight to Amsterdam last September.

Late last week, a Garuda pilot was formally named as a suspect in the investigation.

Earlier this week, a government-backed fact-finding team investigating Mr Munir's death urged the police to investigate several members of the state intelligence agency.

- BBC

[ORAC]

BBC: Indonesia widens air murder probe

Indonesian police have named two more employees of the country's national airline as suspects in the death of prominent rights activist Munir. They are Oedi Irianto, who was working in the galley during the flight Munir died on, and stewardess Yeti Susmiarti.

They are the second and third official suspects in the arsenic poisoning of Munir, who died during a Garuda flight to Amsterdam on 7 September last year. Last month police named Pollycarpus Priyanto, a former pilot, as the first. They also announced plans to question and scrutinise the bank details of Garuda's outgoing director general, Indra Setiawan.

Colonel Anton Charlian, chief investigator of the case, said the two new suspects, Oedi Irianto and Yeti Susmiarti, were in charge of the meal Munir was served on the first leg of his flight - from Jakarta to Singapore. They have been taken in for questioning, but have not been arrested, he added.

The two suspects' lawyer, Muhammad Assegaf, said his clients had done nothing wrong. "I don't see anything strange when they did their job in preparing, serving and delivering food for Garuda passengers, including Munir," he said.

A government fact-finding team urged police on Tuesday to also question four other Garuda employees and two members of the state intelligence agency.

Munir took up the cause of numerous activists who disappeared in suspicious circumstances, and also spoke out against the abuses committed by the Indonesian military across the country during the rule of former President Suharto. He once said he had lost count of the number of death threats he had received.

Munir is said to have sent an SMS text message from Singapore airport, where his plane made a stopover, to his wife telling her he was feeling ill. A few hours later he was dead.

Garuda is a state-owned airline and many of its staff formerly served in the armed forces.