Human rights activists have expressed shock after a prominent Indonesian lawyer's autopsy showed up high levels of arsenic. Munir, who campaigned against abuses under ex-dictator Suharto, died on a flight to the Netherlands in September. His death had been put down to natural causes. But the Indonesian police said on Friday they would now investigate to determine if the 38-year-old was murdered. | CSI - Jakarta is on the case. |
Munir was a prominent human rights activist who earned his reputation during the years of the Suharto dictatorship, when he frequently clashed with Indonesia's entrenched interests. He once said that he had "lost count" of the number of death threats he had received.
If the suspicions that Munir was poisoned are confirmed, it would be an unwelcome resurgence of the sort of brutal tactics that many Indonesians hoped had become a thing of the past. |