International Herald Tribune 30-31 July Briefly Aisa/Pacific

JAKARTA Prosecutors filed charges on Friday against a pilot accused of helping fatally poison an Indonesian human rights activist on a flight to Amsterdam in September 2004 officials said.

The pilot, Pollycarpus Priyanto, of Garuda Indonesia Airways, was charged with helping plan and carry out the murder of Munir Said Thalib, said Yan Witra, a clerk at the Central Jakarta District Court. The defendant faces a maximum penalty of death if convicted.

Munir was a vocal critic of the Indonesian military's alleged human rights abuses in the provinces of Aceh and Papua. He also accused army officers of running an illegal logging and drug smuggling network.

An independent fact-finding team said last month that Indonesia's intelligence agency might have been involved in Munir's death. (A.P.)