A court sentenced airline pilot Pollycarpus Priyanto to 14 years in prison after finding him guilty of poisoning Thalib's meal on a flight to Amsterdam on Sept. 7, 2004, noting that the pilot received many calls from a phone registered to a senior intelligence agent ahead of the murder. Prosecutors, who had sought a life sentence, insisted they would launch an appeal.

The Thalib investigation is seen as a test of how much the country has changed since former President Suharto's dictatorship, when state-sponsored killings were common and military and police officers were largely above the law.

The Japan Times Weekly: Dec. 23, 2005
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