Jakarta's justice on trial

Jakarta, Suara Indonesia News - court case is serving as a litmus test for Indonesia's
democracy, suggest Tim Lindsey and Jemma Parsons

IN a tiny courtroom in south Jakarta, Indonesian democracy is on
trial. In the dock is Muchdi Purwopranjono, the former commander
of Indonesia's special forces (Kopassus) and deputy head of BIN,
the state intelligence agency.

The charges are that he ordered the murder by poisoning on a
Garuda airlines flight in September 2004 of prominent human
rights lawyer and activist Munir Said Thalib. The evidence so
far seems damning, but the big question is no longer whether or
not he did it.

Instead, the real issue as the trial moves into its second month
is whether the judiciary has the nerve to convict a military and
intelligence heavy such as Muchdi.
He is the first high-ranking intelligence official brought to
trial in Indonesia. If convicted, he will be the first senior
member of the powerful military and intelligence apparatus to
face the consequences of the violent abuses of human rights that
have been its stock-in-trade for almost half a century.

Before the fall of former president Suharto in 1998, military
and government officials enjoyed an informal but very effective
immunity that put them above the law and allowed the government
to routinely use murder, violence and abduction as political
tools.

Now, a decade into Indonesia's post-Suharto democratic overhaul,
the legal system faces a crucial test.

As far as most Indonesians are concerned, a death sentence or
even a jail term for Muchdi would be a pass result and a clean
bill of health for the rule of law. Acquittal would be a fail,
and confirmation that Suharto's system is still alive and well,
despite 10 years of dramatic democratic reform.

Evidence regarding the events that led to Munir's agonising
death on his flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam in 2004 has been
unearthed in hard-won, incremental fragments, but the signs
point to BIN in general, and Muchdi in particular, as the
masterminds.

And the motive? In 1998, Munir, a highly regarded human rights
defender, uncovered evidence that Muchdi was involved in the
disappearance between 1997 and 1998 of 13 activists critical of
the government. This led to Muchdi's humiliating dismissal as
Kopassus commander after only 52 days in that position.

The prosecution says Muchdi's next position as BIN deputy head
conveniently gave him the means to exact his revenge.

Munir's actual killer was former Garuda pilot and BIN
``corporate security officer'' Pollycarpus Priyanto, now serving
a 20-year jail term for administering the fatal dose of arsenic
in a glass of orange juice.

Records of 41 calls between Muchdi's mobile phone and
Pollycarpus tie the two together, along with official statements
by two witnesses who saw Pollycarpus at Muchdi's office before
Munir's death (although the statements were revoked when these
witnesses were asked to testify recently).

Usman Hamid, a former member of the government fact-finding team
assigned to investigate the murder, has gone further still. He
testified recently to the court about a four-page document dated
six months before the murder that sets out four options for
killing Munir: shooting, beating, poisoning and black magic.

This, Hamid claims, was prepared at a meeting of the plotters,
attended by Muchdi and the head of BIN, A.M. Hendropriyono. Also
present, Hamid says, was former Garuda Indonesia president
director Indra Setiawan, who assigned Pollycarpus as a security
crew member for Munir's flight at BIN's written request. He has
served a one-year prison sentence for his role in the
assassination.

Even Muchdi and his lawyers seem to acknowledge that BIN was
behind the murder, with Muchdi seeking to pin the blame on a
former colleague, BIN agent Budi Santoso. This is presumably
because Santoso previously claimed it was Muchdi who ordered
Munir's murder and that Pollycarpus had confirmed this.

Whoever is telling the truth, one thing is now clear to most
Indonesians: all roads in this protracted murder investigation
lead to BIN, a state agency charged with national security and
responsible to the president and the legislature. Although this
in itself is deeply troubling, what matters most is what happens
next. The verdict, whichever way it goes, will send a powerful
message to the international community about Indonesia's
readiness to assume the status of a full-fledged democracy and
shed the transitional prefix.

It will also send a powerful message to the Indonesian people
and state officials about the nature of the post-Suharto
Indonesian state, just as the nation gears up for general
elections early next year. We can only hope themessage reads:
``Welcome to the new era of transparent, democratic
accountability.''

Tim Lindsey is director of the Asian Law Centre at the
University of Melbourne, where Jemma Parsons is a principal
researcher. (RED)