Activist murder conviction repealed

Indonesia's Supreme Court has quashed a murder conviction and a 14-year jail term given to a pilot over the death of a leading human rights activist.

Pollycarpus Priyanto had been accused of putting arsenic in food served to Munir Thalib on a flight to Amsterdam in 2004.

Judges hearing the appeal by the Garuda airlines pilot have found there was insufficient evidence to support a premeditated murder charge.

They have found him not guilty of killing Mr Munir but backed a lower court conclusion that he faked documents.

Priyanto allegedly falsified Garuda letterhead to change the date of his airline ticket so he could board the same flight as Mr Munir.

He has now been sentenced to two years' jail.

Mr Munir died in the business-class cabin of a Garuda flight in September 2004 and a Dutch autopsy found a lethal dose of arsenic in his blood.

Priyanto, who was on the flight but off-duty, was jailed after being found guilty of lacing the activist's drink with the lethal poison.

A government-sanctioned team that investigated Mr Munir's death said it had evidence Priyanto had frequent telephone contact with intelligence agents before and after the murder.

The activist, who was 38 years old when he died, had made many powerful enemies through his work during and after the rule of dictator Suharto, which ended in May 1998.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had promised Mr Munir's widow he would to do everything in his power to bring those responsible to justice.

- AFP