Detectives testify against former top spy in Munir case

Two police detectives testified Thursday at the trial of former State Intelligence Agency (BIN) deputy head Muchdi Purwopranjono, denying pressuring witnesses and manipulating testimonies in the defendant’s dossier.

Sr. Comr Pambudi Pamungkas and Comr. Daniel Tifauna were summoned to the trial of Muchdi, charged with the murder of noted human rights campaigner Munir Said Thalib in 2004, to explain the recent denials and retractions of testimonies by several witnesses.

Daniel and Pambudi, from the National Police’s criminal investigation division, had questioned BIN agents Kawan, Zondhy Anwar and Arifin Rahman as witnesses in the case.

However, during recent hearings at the South Jakarta District Court the three witnesses revoked their testimonies given to police investigators in March and June 2008.

BIN officials Suradi and Imam Mustopha also made similar moves at the same trial.

The flurry of retractions caused the panel of judges to later demand prosecutors present the police detectives to testify in the trial.
Both Daniel and Pambudi denied allegations the police had pressured witnesses and manipulated procedures during the questioning, as claimed by Kawan and Zondhy.

“That was impossible because (the witnesses) were always accompanied by officials from the BIN’s legal bureau during the questioning,” Pambudi told the court.

“The witnesses told us they were in healthy condition before testifying.”

Pambudi also denied the detectives had not reread the testimonies to the witnesses for final confirmation.

“In fact, Kawan borrowed my glasses to read his testimony himself because he forgot to bring his own glasses,” Pambudi said, adding the glasses fit Kawan.

Daniel said his team of detectives was ready to confront the witnesses in the courtroom because the police had videotaped the questioning sessions.

“We videotaped all the questioning sessions in anticipation of such a situation (denials and retractions),” he said, adding the witnesses had been told about the videotaping.

Kawan previously told the court he had never testified to the police about receiving orders from former BIN director Budi Santoso to monitor, track and hunt down activists from the Commission on Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), led at the time by Munir.

Kawan, Zondhy and Arifin also denied seeing former Garuda pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto visit the BIN office. Pollycarpus was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in the murder.

Prosecutors say they have records of 41 phone calls between Pollycarpus and Muchdi before and after Munir’s murder. However, this has been denied by the two.

In Thursday’s hearing, prosecutors also presented an expert witness from telecommunications company Telkomsel, Rahmat Budianto, to confirm whether the call data record (CDR) could be manipulated.

Rahmat said it was impossible for anyone to manipulate the CDR, because of the high-level security and accuracy of the system.

“(The system) is error-free, at zero percent. It applies to all operators across the world,” he said. “If someone inserts (fake) data into the record, the system will automatically delete the rest of the data.”

The trial has been adjourned to Nov. 6, when judges will decide whether to allow prosecutors to read out the testimonies of Budi Santoso and former BIN deputy head M. As’ad, following their failure to appear at court.

Prosecutors admitted they did not know where the two were.

“We sent 14 letters to Budi Santoso and 12 to As’ad. They were on state duty abroad, but even the Foreign Ministry has no idea of their exact locations,” prosecutor Cirus Sinaga said.