Indonesia on Friday executed four drug convicts by firing squad, an official said, ignoring global pressure and desperate pleas from relatives to halt the execution.
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According to Noor Rachmad, deputy attorney general for general crimes, the trio was put to death alongside one Indonesian on Thursday after pleading guilty to the crime.
Authorities say the other 10 on death row will be executed at a later unspecified date, as Indonesia shows no signs of backing down on the death penalty.
He expressed his condolences to their families and said, “surely this is not a fun job, this job is miserable because it involves peoples’ live”. The Commission has created a team of 11 lawyers who work pro bono for the innocent people who are mistaken for drug traffickers.
His execution drive has shocked the global community and disappointed activists, particularly as hopes were high that Widodo, seen as a fresh face in a political world dominated by figures from Indonesia’s authoritarian past, would improve the country’s rights record.
Indonesia’s prosecutors have always stressed that only death row convicts who have exhausted all legal avenues are put on the execution list. But Rachmad did not say why the 10 other drug convicts were not executed.
Friday’s executions were the third under Widodo since he took office in 2014.
The convicts killed on Friday have been identifed as Indonesian Freddy Budiman and Nigerians Seck Osmane, Humphrey Jefferson Ejike and Michael Titus Igweh.
The death penalty is widely accepted by the Indonesian public, but police on Thursday had to break up a protest outside the prison by members of a migrant workers group who called for mercy for an Indonesian woman who was scheduled to be executed.
The government had said earlier in the week that 14 people on death row, mostly foreigners, would be executed on the Nusa Kambangan prison island.
Known as the Alcatraz of Indonesia, it is the same place where Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed, along with six others, in April past year.
Nadeem said whether he was excused or his execution delayed, and he could give no additional details that were legal at the moment regarding Zulfiqar Ali’s case, but he said Indonesian authorities would shortly inform Pakistani officials of the details.
“We will keep fighting to seek justice for our family”, said the relative, Nila, who used one name.
Indonesia has one of the strictest anti-drug laws in the world, to fight what President Joko Widodo has called “a national emergency”.
Indonesia is known to have some of the toughest anti-drug laws in the world and executed 14 drug convicts, mostly foreigners, in two batches previous year. Widodo declared a “drug emergency” a year ago, on the grounds that such use reportedly kills around 40-50 people in the country daily. Amnesty International estimates several thousand people are executed in China each year.
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Worldwide, China is believed to be the country with the highest number of executions but it does not release figures.
