International   

Jailed for inflight murder

Jakarta: An off-duty Indonesian airline pilot was on Tuesday jailed for 14 years for murdering one of the country's leading human rights activists by lacing his food with arsenic during a flight. The poisoning of Munir Thalib (38), on September 7, 2004, was part of a conspiracy, the Jakarta court ruled, but the judges did not speculate who else might have been involved. An inquiry set up by the country's President implicated the country's intelligence agency, BIN, but nothing was proved. The judges said the pilot, Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, acted in concert with two members of the cabin crew on a flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam. He swapped his business class seat for Munir's in economy before the flight, even though they did not know each other. "The accused kept an eye on Munir to make sure he had eaten all his noodles,'' Judge Cicut Sutiarso said in the verdict. Munir became violently ill several hours later and died soon after. A Dutch autopsy found he had very high levels of arsenic in his blood.

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Saran meets Rice, Burns
Saddam Hussein present as trial resumes
Most Al-Qaeda leaders killed, says Russia
Russia tests sea-borne nuclear missile
Jailed for inflight murder
Arms surrender complete
Two more bus route agreements formalised

Copyright © 2005, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu