Indonesia court upholds acquittal of spy in activist murder case

Jul 10, 2009, 13:20 GMT

   Jakarta - Indonesia's Supreme Court said Friday it had upheld the acquittal of a former top official at the country's spy agency accused of murdering a prominent human rights activist five years ago.

   The activist, Munir Said Thalib, died of poisoning on a Garuda Indonesia flight to Amsterdam in 2004. A Dutch coroner found a deadly dose of arsenic in his body.

   Last year, a Jakarta district court cleared Muchdi Purwopranjono, a former deputy chairman of the National Intelligence Agency, of charges that he commissioned the murder, but prosecutors appealed the verdict.

   The Supreme Court said in a statement on its website that the lower court's ruling was valid.

   A spokesman for the court, Hatta Ali, said 'the prosecutor's appeal has been rejected.'

   The statement said the decision was made on June 15. It was not clear why the court had delayed announcing its verdict.

   The verdict came two days after a presidential election in which incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was set win by a landslide.

   Yudhoyono has vowed to get to the bottom of the case and promised justice for Munir's family.

   Munir's widow, Suciwati, said she was 'shocked' by the ruling and the Kontras human rights group, once led by Munir, said it knew the Supreme Court judges who examined the case had 'worrying track records.'

   Last year, the Supreme Court sentenced Pollycarpus Priyanto, a Garuda pilot who acted as an aviation security officer on Munir's flight, to 20 years in jail for carrying out the murder.

   Former Garuda chief Indra Setiawan was jailed for one year for his role in the murder.

   Munir, who died aged 38, was a strong critic of the military's excesses during the rule of former dictator Suharto, who resigned under pressure in 1998.

   The case is seen as a test of the government's determination to uphold the rule of law in a country where the rich and the powerful were often untouched by the law during Suharto's 32-year rule.