T

he final verdict on the murder of human rights activist Munir Said Thalib, announced on Monday, was not just another puzzling note in our history. This case had after all caused President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to shed many a tear in front of Munir'€™s widow, Suciwati.

Though the verdict is in, the assassination of the nation'€™s leading human rights defender remains unresolved, and not just because the Supreme Court reduced the sentence for the lone defendant, pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Prijanto, from 20 years to 14 because of '€œlack of evidence'€.

In a rare instance, the Supreme Court overturned its own decision, following a judicial review request filed by Pollycarpus in 2011, though two out of five justices dissented. The assenting justices said prosecutors had failed to prove that Pollycarpus had been following orders from the National Intelligence Agency (BIN). The agency'€™s deputy chief, Maj. Gen. (ret) Muchdi Purwopranjono, had earlier been cleared of charges that he ordered Pollycarpus to kill Munir, an outspoken critic of alleged atrocities committed by the Indonesian Military (TNI).

If Muchdi, a former elite Army Special Forces (Kopassus) commander, was cleared, and we don'€™t know for sure if Pollycarpus was actually working for BIN, then we are back to zero. If this case can'€™t be solved, then thousands of others waiting for answers on missing relatives or friends who died in unclear circumstances have reason to give up hope.

Munir led investigations into many such cases, so his murder was a true test of whether Indonesia, the world'€™s third largest democracy and a leading proponent of ASEAN'€™s human rights charter, could put a dent in the apparent impunity of national security forces by bringing his killer to justice.

But if Pollycarpus'€™ links to BIN are unproven, it remains a mystery why some random pilot detested Munir so much that he allegedly poisoned his drink, causing Munir'€™s death on Sept. 7, 2004, aboard a Garuda Indonesia flight to Amsterdam.

Questions still also remain regarding the telephone records between the mobile numbers of Pollycarpus and Muchdi. These records were not sufficiently examined by prosecutors in the courtroom, which severely weakened their case. This of course begs the question: Did the prosecutors intentionally build a weak case? And why were apparent amateurs assigned to prosecute such a high-profile case?

Similar questions are common in unsettled cases of our recent past '€” loose ends that birth suspicions about the integrity of the entire judiciary, which has allowed murderers to get off scot-free. It remains a chilling issue, 15 years after the reform movement forced long-time ruler Soeharto to quit the presidency.

President Yudhoyono did not follow up on recommendations made by his fact-finding team on the Munir case, including a suggestion to further investigate BIN itself. Whether we can move forward under Yudhoyono'€™s leadership will depend on the resolution of the several other open human rights cases in the country. Without meaningful efforts and results, we will continue to be mired in a legacy of protecting murderers and silencing criticism.