Flight Attendant Murders

Post 9/11: Uneasiness lingers for plane crews and travelers alike

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The first clue came in a short radio message from a United Airlines dispatcher.

Make sure the cockpit door is secure.

“I called the flight attendant and said ‘Is everything OK in back?’” Capt. Steve Derebey said in a recent interview about flying on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. “She responded that everything was completely normal.”

But when Derebey touched down at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport after the 80-minute trip from Cleveland, he learned from the gate agent that things were anything but normal.

American Airlines Flight 11 had crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York. Minutes later, Derebey, squeezed into the crowd around a large-screen TV at an airport bar — all terminal televisions had been shut off — saw United Airlines Flight 175 fly into the South Tower.

Americans nationwide witnessed the same live coverage of airplanes turned into weapons of mass murder in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. And while the horror and brush with anarchy has dimmed a decade later, uneasiness lingers for plane crews and travelers alike.

“It’s a landscape of suspicion,” said Daniel Rust, assistant director of the Center for Transportation Studies at the University of Missouri.

At security checkpoints, we strip off coats, shoes and belts. We extract 1-quart, zip-top bags of toiletries from carry-ons. We pass through body scanners and explosives detectors. We board with our eyes wide open.

“After 9/11 you started looking at who else was on the plane with you, what else people were carrying, what kind of bags they had,” said Cleveland attorney Andrew Pollis. “You started looking at how other people were also looking around. Looking at you. Looking at the people you were looking at.”

  “A tremendous  sense of anxiety”

The last moments of a pre-9/11 world for Pollis are embedded in a dry legal transcript.

“We need to go off the record for a minute,” said a lawyer interrupting a business dispute at a law firm in Florham Park, N.J., 30 miles west of Manhattan. The court reporter stopped transcribing. Fifteen attorneys moved into an office with the only TV set.

Indonesia: Refocus Efforts to Solve Activist's Murder | Human Rights ...

(New York) - Indonesian police should strengthen efforts to find those responsible for the 2004 murder of a leading human rights lawyer instead of pursuing criminal defamation allegations against one of his fellow activists, Human Rights Watch said today. Munir bin Thalib, a renowned lawyer, was poisoned on September 7, 2004 while on a Garuda Indonesia flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam. Maj. Gen. (ret.) Muchdi Purwopranjono, a senior intelligence official, was acquitted of murder charges on December 31, 2008.

Those who orchestrated the murder remain free. But on a complaint from Muchdi, Jakarta police have begun a criminal defamation investigation against Usman Hamid, the coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), for statements he allegedly made following Muchdi's acquittal. Police questioned Usman on September 9, 2009.

"Five years on, the masterminds behind Munir's murder are still free, while Munir's fellow activists continue to face intimidation," said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "The police should focus on gathering stronger evidence to bring those who planned Munir's death to justice."

Muchdi, a former director at Indonesia's State Intelligence Agency (known as Badan Intelijen Negara or BIN) and the former head of the army's abusive special forces unit Kopassus, has reportedly alleged that Usman shouted, "murderer, murderer" during the general's trial on charges of premeditated murder.

Following Muchdi's acquittal, the roughly one thousand people attending the trial reacted with yelling and applause, depending on which side of the case they supported. Usman made a speech outside the court, criticizing the verdict. According to media accounts, he said, "Siapa pembunuh Munir? Muchdi," which means, "Who murdered Munir? Muchdi."

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has said that finding Munir's killers was "the test of our history." Usman was a member of an independent fact-finding team established by Yudhoyono in December 2004 to conduct investigations into the killing. In May 2005, Yudhoyono ordered three ministers to investigate several suspects at Garuda Indonesia and the State Intelligence Agency.

Two persons were convicted for the murder - an off-duty Garuda pilot, Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment, and the former Garuda chief executive officer, Indra Setiawan, sentenced to one year. But they are believed to be minor figures in the killing. The fact-finding team examined Pollycarpus's mobile-phone records and traced several dialed numbers, one of which was a confidential line to the intelligence branch directed by Muchdi, a deputy director of the State Intelligence Body. Records reportedly show that as many as 41 calls were made to Muchdi's line, before and after Munir's death, and that there had been multiple calls between Pollycarpus's and Muchdi's personal mobile numbers.

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