In Pakistan, dozens of Zulfikar Ali’s relatives distributed candies to well-wishers outside the family’s home in the eastern city of Lahore to express relief and joy over his life being spared.
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Indonesia has halted the execution of Pakistani drug convict Zulfiqar Ali, Pakistan’s ambassador in Jakarta confirmed on Thursday, hours before the Lahore resident was set to face a firing squad.
Serious questions have also been raised about the legitimacy of the legal process that brought those to death row.
Amnesty International called the latest executions “a deplorable act that violates international and Indonesian law” and pleaded that the other death sentences not be carried out.
“This is not a fun job”.
“We want the Nigerian authorities and people to also put pressure on the Indonesian government to save the lives of these Nigerians as well as the other nationalities as risk of being executed”.
“The executions were done not to take their lives, but to stop their crimes”, Noor said.
Ali’s lawyers at the Justice Project Pakistan said that he was not executed as per schedule. Petitions to review their cases had been denied.
Indonesia had earlier rejected mounting worldwide pressure and desperate pleas from relatives to halt the execution of 14 drug convicts, claiming that the executions were in accordance with global law and “necessary method” to address the drug crisis, the Jakarta Post reported. The last round was in April 2015, when authorities put to death eight drug convicts, including two Australians.
The convicts were shot by firing squad at the Nusa Kambangan penal island shortly after midnight on Friday local time (1700 GMT on Thursday) amid pouring rain, according to TV reports.
Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen, reporting from Jakarta, said among those who were executed were two Nigerian citizens, a South African citizen and one Indonesian.
Singh, 48, was found guilty of trying to smuggle 300 grams of heroin into Indonesia in 2004 and was sentenced to death by a state district court at Tanggerang in Banten province in February 2005.
There were claims a number of prisoners had received unfair trials and some had allegedly been tortured to confess.
Officials did not give a reason for the reprieve, but the prison island where they were expected to be executed was hit by a major storm as the other sentences were carried out.
Pakistan, meanwhile, had also filed a clemency plea with Indonesia.
Indian and Pakistani officials said they were making last-minute efforts to save their citizens.
Attorney-General Muhammad Prasetyo told a news conference that the severity of the drug crimes and exhaustion of all appeals was a consideration in the execution of the four men.
“So, we are calling on the Indonesian government and all governments across the world to abolish the death penalty, to change the death penalty to prison terms especially for those who are now at risk of execution”.
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“The increasing use of the death penalty in Indonesia is terribly worrying and I urge the government to immediately end this practice, which is unjust and incompatible with human rights”, said Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, in a statement.
