Indonesian Spy Chief Cleared in Activist's Murder

Retired army Gen. Muchdi Purwoprandjono, center left, is surrounded by body guards after his trial...

Retired army Gen. Muchdi Purwoprandjono, center left, is surrounded by body guards after his trial in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, Dec 31, 2008. An Indonesian court has acquitted the former state intelligence agent of ordering the murder of a prominent rights campaigner.(AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim)

(AP)

A former Indonesian intelligence chief was cleared Wednesday of playing any role in the fatal mid-flight poisoning of the country's most prominent human rights activist and a symbol of defiance in the face of authoritarian rule.

Critics called the ruling proof that Indonesia's courts are still unable to hold high officials accountable a decade after the country embraced democracy.

Munir Thalib was poisoned on a flight to Amsterdam in 2004 after an off-duty pilot with the national carrier, Garuda, boarded his plane posing as an undercover security agent and slipped him a dose of arsenic.

The murder case became a critical test of Indonesia's willingness to come to grips with the authoritarian legacy of the late dictator Suharto, who was swept from power by massive street protests in 1998 after 32 years in charge. Thalib's efforts to expose atrocities had made him an icon in the struggle against the dictatorship.

Hundreds of Thalib supporters protested outside the courthouse Wednesday.

The European Union and the United States have followed the murder case closely, with Congress earlier this year threatening to withhold $2.7 million in military aid pending the completion of the criminal investigation into the killing.

On Wednesday, the South Jakarta District Court acquitted retired intelligence chief and Maj. Gen. Muchdi Purwoprandjono of charges of murder and abuse of power, saying prosecutors had failed to prove his involvement in Thalib's death.

But a long trail of evidence presented during the trial appeared to implicate Purwoprandjono's former employer, the State Intelligence Agency, including records of dozens of phone calls between Purwoprandjono and the killer's cell phones around the time of the murder.

The acquittal is a major setback for legal reformers, who had hoped Indonesia's court system had become strong enough after Suharto to hold accountable high-ranking officials.

"This outcome makes human rights defenders greatly question their safety," Ifdhal Kasim, chairman of the National Commission for Human Rights, told The Associated Press. The verdict "shows that our judicial system has failed to fully uphold its independence."