TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Eleven years have passed since human rights activist, Munir Said Thalib, was murdered aboard a Garuda Indonesia Boeing 747 bound for Amsterdam, but the search for the real killer continues to blaze on. That said, Vice President Jusuf Kalla said that the case is indeed, officially closed.
The Vice President ensured that the government will not re-open Munir's murder case - let alone form a specific task-force to scrutinize the details of the case, especially considering that the state has sentenced Pollycarpus Budihari Prijanto, the sole suspect in the case to imprisonment. "Let us not forget that he had already served his time in jail," said Kalla at his office on Monday, September 7, 2015.
As such, there needs to be no follow up to Munir's case. For Kalla, the state has done what it could and should have done to expose the mastermind of the murder.
When asked about the mounting pressure from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to get to the bottom of the murder case, the VP asks all NGOs to abide and respect the court's decision. "The court has the final say - Indonesia is a legal state, not a state run by NGOs," said Kalla.
Munir Said Thalib, is a human rights activist that was born in Malang, on December 8, 1965. He was found dead on September 7, 2004, en route to Amsterdam, where he was supposed to pursue further education - instead he was poisoned with arsenic and died aboard the aircraft above Hungarian airspace.
The Police have established one suspect in the case, namely Pollycarpus Budihari Prijanto, who had since been released from custody on November 28, 2014.
The real mastermind behind the case has yet to be found.
REZA ADITYA
