Garuda told to pay for Indonesian activist murder

Indonesia's supreme court ordered flag carrier Garuda Indonesia to pay nearly US$400,000 (S$511,000) to the widow of a human rights activist murdered during a flight in 2004. -- PHOTO: AFP

JAKARTA - INDONESIA'S supreme court ordered flag carrier Garuda Indonesia to pay nearly US$400,000 (S$511,000) to the widow of a human rights activist murdered during a flight in 2004, court documents showed on Friday.

Munir Said Thalib died of arsenic poisoning on a Garuda flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam via Singapore seven years ago. The activist's widow Suciwati filed a civil lawsuit in 2006 against the airline under consumer protection laws.

'The court ruled that PT Garuda Indonesia has breached Indonesian law... ordered (the company) to pay a loss it caused to the plaintiff an amount of 3.43 billion rupiah (S$495,000),' the document received by AFP said.

The court's ruling was dated Jan 28 but it was only made public this week.

Former Garuda boss Indra Setiawan and pilot Pollycarpus Priyanto were handed jail terms over the murder in 2008, but a former senior spy who has been long accused of being behind the killing was acquitted in 2009.

Pollycarpus was jailed for 20 years for carrying out the murder, while Setiawan was sentenced to a year in jail for being an accomplice. -- AFP