Indonesian human rights activist Munir had plenty of powerful enemies. As an outspoken critic of the former Suharto regime and institutions such as the military, he had become so accustomed to death threats, friends say, that he long ago stopped counting them.

But when the Dutch authorities revealed last month that his death aboard a flight to Amsterdam on September 7 was the result of arsenic poisoning, it brought back ugly memories of the political assassinations and kidnappings of President Suharto's so-called "New Order".