In the nearly four years since her husband died in agony aboard a Garuda jetliner over Europe, Ms Suciwati, 40, has expended most of her energies in a tenacious fight to win justice for her husband and for the victims of other unsolved crimes.

It has taken an emotional toll on her and her two young children. But here she is, nevertheless, on a sunlit afternoon discussing the latest developments and looking as if she is in no way exhausted by what she has been through.

There has been a major break in the case with the arrest of former National Intelligence Agency (BIN) deputy director Muchdi Purwopranjono, 59, one of the alleged masterminds behind the murder. Ms Suciwati is pleasantly surprised at this turn of events. But like me, she wonders whether the police have any more evidence than a string of phone calls between Purwopranjono and Pollycarpus Priyanto, the pilot convicted of feeding Mr Munir a fatal dose of arsenic.

Because the case against the former special forces chief is only circumstantial at this point, there are concerns the government may only be reacting to international pressure, which Ms Suciwati helped pump up. The Attorney-General's Office has already sent the file back to police investigators for further work - a sign that they have yet to convince prosecutors there is a solid case to take to court.

'The police are always saying I would be surprised at what they have,' says Ms Suciwati. 'They have other evidence, but they say it is secret. Surely they wouldn't dare go against a two-star general if they didn't have something.'

The evidence against Priyanto was circumstantial too, but courtroom testimony and Ms Suciwati's recollections suggest the airline pilot-turned-assassin had been trying to ingratiate himself with Mr Munir for months before the bizarre murder.

In fact, the murder plot may well have been hatched in the early months of 2004, about the time that Dr Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had announced his intention to challenge Ms Megawati Sukarnoputri for the presidency.

Ms Suciwati does not know when the two met, but she recalled Mr Munir telling her in March of that year that Priyanto had approached him as he was preparing to fly to Geneva and asked if he could post a letter. Mr Munir declined because he did not know what was in it.

She became aware of Priyanto's existence only when he called the house two days before her husband's ill-fated flight and asked when he was leaving. 'I inquired who he was and he replied: 'It's Polly from Garuda'.'

She said that when she relayed the conversation to Mr Munir that evening, he told her: 'Oh, that guy. He's a weird one.'

But Ms Suciwati was troubled. 'I thought I had divulged too much,' she says. She had the same feeling when she learnt of her husband's death: 'I never believed he was just sick. I immediately suspected there was something wrong.'

Ms Suciwati says Priyanto also sought to befriend activist Yenny Rosa Damayanti, who had supported the holding of the 1999 East Timor referendum that led to the territory's independence from Indonesia.

For two years, between 2005 and last year, the Munir investigation went nowhere and Ms Suciwati began to doubt the trust she had put in Dr Yudhoyono's personal promise to her to pursue the case to the end.

Then National Police chief of detectives Bambang Hendarso Danuri took charge of the investigation and everything seemed to change. 'I believe in him,' she told The Straits Times, 'because what he has said has always turned out to be right.'

Ms Suciwati has few doubts about who planned the murder and why they went to such bizarre lengths: 'I think it can only be the work of intelligence people. They thought that the more complicated things were, the more difficult it would be to solve.'

But why kill Mr Munir in the first place, particularly when he was going off to Holland for a year? Most people still feel it was an act of malice, directed at a man who had carried out an unrelenting campaign against the military and its record of human rights abuses.

Not Ms Suciwati. She links his murder to the presidential race, noting that it took place only weeks before the second round run-off between Ms Megawati and Dr Yudhoyono, the retired general who was previously her subordinate.

Her theory: Mr Munir's death would be blamed on the military and that, in turn, would rebound on Dr Yudhoyono at a key stage in the race.

Even Ms Suciwati understands, however, that Ms Megawati's new administration would have been far more militaristic, given the support she enjoyed from hardline figures like former BIN chief Hendropriyono and former army chief Ryamizard Ryacudu.

Suspicions that Mr Hendropriyono himself may have played a part of the murder plot have been circulating for years. His response has always been to confront the allegations head-on. After all, the evidence against him simply is not there.

Ms Suciwati presses on with her quest for justice. 'I didn't have high expectations to start with, so I'm not giving up here,' she says. 'My hope is for the case to be resolved and for the guilty to be prosecuted.'

She owes it to the man she fell in love with at first sight.

thane.cawdor@gmail.com

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Ms Suciwati has few doubts about who planned the murder and why they went to such bizarre lengths: 'I think it can only be the work of intelligence people. They thought that the more complicated things were, the more difficult it would be to solve.'