Human rights activist poisoned
Jakarta (AsiaNews/Agencies) - Alì Munir, one of Indonesia best known human rights activists, might have been poisoned, this according to his family after the autopsy report indicated the presence "of levels or arsenic and metals higher than normal". It was unclear how they entered his body. Mr Munir died on a Garuda flight from Amsterdam.
"Now that I know that he was poisoned," said Suciwati, Mr Munir's wife, "I want an enquiry." The police said they would open an investigation to determine whether the 38-year-old was murdered or not.
Mr Munir at the end of the 1990s founded the Commission for the Disappeared and the Victims of Violence to denounce the death of civilians in "extrajudicial killings". He was prominent in the campaign against the role of the Indonesian military in repressions, especially in East Timor. In 1999 he was appointed to a United Nations Commission of Inquiry charged with investigating human rights violations on the island.
"This is no ordinary crime," said Todung Mulya Lubis, a human rights attorney, who demanded that "independent public figures" be part of the commission of inquiry.
"From the beginning," said Usman Hamid of Kontras, "we suspected that his death was not natural, that he was poisoned, because when he left for the Netherlands he was in good health." (FP)
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08/04/2005
05/06/2006
