Munir’s widow to challenge Pollycarpus’ jail term remissions

The widow of human rights defender Munir Said Thalib, Suciwati, is to file a lawsuit against Law and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar to challenge the minister’s series of sentence remissions granted to a convict in her husband’s murder, an activist said on Tuesday.

“We have filed an official request to the Law and Human Rights Ministry asking for copies of the ministerial decrees which granted Pollycarpus a number of sentence reductions,” Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) chairman Haris Azhar told The Jakarta Post.

“After we get the copies from the ministry, we will legally assist Suciwati to file the lawsuit with the Jakarta State Administrative Court [PTUN],” he said.

Haris was referring to former pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Prijanto who was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in 2008 for the pre-meditated murder of Munir, Kontras’ founder.

According to data compiled by Kontras, the government has cut Pollycarpus’ jail term by a total of 24.5 months through seven different remission grants since the issuance of the 2008 Supreme Court ruling.

The remissions were granted every Independence Day and Christmas Day.

“We suspect that the sentence remissions have not been given through proper processes,” Haris said. “The government should have applied stricter conditions for a human rights convict such as Pollycarpus.”

A spokesman for the Law and Human Rights Ministry, Martua Batubara, said the ministry would be ready to face a lawsuit. “The minister will appoint relevant officials to explain before the court our arguments behind granting the remissions,” he told the Post.

Munir was killed by arsenic poisoning on board a Garuda Indonesia flight to Amsterdam in 2004.