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Officials to face criminal charges if they can't locate Munir murder files
Jakarta Globe - October 15, 2016
Public information commissioners earlier this week ordered the government to declassify the files, but the State Secretariat claimed it does not have them or know their whereabouts.
Officials are still searching for the files amid pressure from human rights activists, who insisted the files had been submitted by a fact-finding team to former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in 2005.
If officials fail to find the files, they could be charged under the 2008 law on public information transparency, a lawyer from the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH) Ucok Sigit said.
"They should be held responsible. The public will lose out if the documents can't be found. That would be a criminal offense," Ucok told the press on Friday (14/10).
The law stipulates that individuals who intentionally dispose of public documents could face up to two years in prison and be fined Rp 10 million ($765).
Citing a 2005 presidential regulation on the State Secretariat, human rights group Kontras activist Putri Kanesia said the institution's response to the order was "contradictory."
The regulation says the secretariat is tasked with providing technical and administrative assistance to the president and vice president.
Human rights groups are still waiting for the government's response before determining their next move, Kontras coordinator Haris Azhar said.
"The state must make an official announcement on the current status of the documents regardless of them having gone missing or not," Haris said.
Activists have long demanded that the government find Munir's real killer. The activist was poisoned with arsenic during a layover in Singapore in 2004 before boarding a flight to Amsterdam.
Former pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto was sentenced to 14 years in prison for premeditated murder in the case, but the alleged masterminds behind his murder remain unknown. The results of the investigation by the fact-finding team have never been made public.
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