Indonesia executes drug smugglers
Filipina mother granted reprieve as eight men shot dead by firing squad
AMNESTY International has condemned Indonesia as “utterly reprehensible” and accused the country of showing a “complete disregard” for internationally recognised safeguards on the death penalty after the execution of eight men.
The convicted Australian drug smugglers Andrew Chan, 31, and Myuran Sukumaran, 33, were among those put to death by firing squad yesterday evening. Four Nigerians, an Indonesian and a Brazilian national, who were also convicted of importing drugs, were also shot dead at an island off Java.
But a Filipina national, Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso, 30, was given a stay of execution after a last-minute intervention by the Indonesian President Joko Widodo
Rupert Abbot, Amnesty International’s Research Director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, said: “These executions are utterly reprehensible. They were carried out with complete disregard for internationally recognized safeguards on the use of the death penalty
“President Widodo should immediately abandon plans to carry out further executions and impose a moratorium on the death penalty as a first step towards abolition.
“The death penalty is always a human rights violation, but there are a number of factors that make today’s executions even more distressing. Some of the prisoners were reportedly not provided access to competent lawyers or interpreters during their arrest and initial trial, in violation of their right to a fair trial which is recognized under international and national law.”
Mr Abbot said one of the executed, Rodrigo Gularte, had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and international law clearly prohibits the use of the death penalty against those with mental disabilities.
He said it was troubling drug traffickers had been executed despite the fact it is not classed as one of the “most serious crimes” for which the death penalty can be imposed under international law.
Nine inmates, all convicted on drug charges, were given 72-hour notices over the weekend that they would be executed by a firing squad, prompting a flurry of last-minute lobbying by foreign leaders.
Eight faced separate police firing squads at an execution site outside the gates of Pasir Putih prison on the island of Nusa Kambangan off the southern coast of Java, according to the attorney general’s office. The United Nations has argued that their crimes – ranging from possession of 72kg of marijuana to heroin trafficking – are not egregious enough to warrant the ultimate punishment.
Indonesian authorities are yet to officially confirm the executions have been carried out.
Earlier, Jakarta rejected last-ditch pleas from around the world for clemency to be granted the drug traffickers from Nigeria, Australia, Brazil and Indonesia, ordering their execution to proceed within hours.
A stay of execution was given to Ms Veloso, 30, so they could review her conviction for smuggling heroin into Indonesia in 2010. Veloso, was arrested in 2010 after she arrived in Indonesia with 2.6kg of heroin hidden in her suitcase. The woman’s family maintains that she was duped into carrying the drugs, hidden in a suitcase, by a drug syndicate.