A Second Chance For Justice

On Sept. 7, 2004, Indonesia's leading human-rights activist, Munir Said Thalib, boarded a Garuda Airlines flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam to take up a scholarship at a Dutch university. But by the time the plane touched down at Schiphol, Munir was dead?poisoned, an autopsy revealed, by arsenic in his orange juice. Last week Indonesia's Supreme Court, declaring there was insufficient evidence, overturned the conviction and 14-year prison sentence of former Garuda pilot Pollycarpus Priyanto, the only suspect charged in Munir's death. Rights groups worldwide slammed the acquittal, with Human Rights Watch calling it a "failure of the Indonesian justice...

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