An investigation by a government-sanctioned fact-finding team has allegedly concluded that Indonesia's powerful spy agency was involved in the high-profile assassination of a leading human rights activist, a local report said yesterday.
Munir, 38, founder of both the Indonesian Human Rights Watch (Imparsial) and Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), died of arsenic poisoning aboard a flight to Amsterdam on the national air carrier last September.
"BIN (the National Intelligence Agency) is believed to have been involved in a conspiracy to murder Munir," the team's deputy chairman Asmara Nababan told the Jakarta Post.
A 100-page document with the investigation's conclusions, which reportedly include a recommendation for police to launch a full investigation of some BIN officials and details their roles in the alleged murder, was to be delivered to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Thursday - the same day the team's mandate expired.
The conclusions, which reportedly fail to explicitly state that BIN committed an institutional crime, also recommend that Yudhoyono establish a team to supervise future investigations of the BIN by police, which they criticize for poor performance in handling the Munir case.
Yudhoyono established the independent body, consisting of 13 members from various backgrounds ranging from non-government organizations to government officials, after accusations surfaced that the intelligence agency may have been involved in Munir's death.
The team has refused to publicly disclose any names of suspects but have outlined several plans to murder Munir after securing access to BIN records and suggested that some individuals may have used the power of their institution to carry out the murder.
Team members made the announcement after frustration over the intelligence agency's alleged refusal to give investigators access to certain relevant documents and its arms warehouse.