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.
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Pakistan confirmed on Friday that its citizen Zulfiqar Ali had not been executed and stated its readiness to formulate a new strategy to prove Ali’s innocence, insisting that the Indonesian judicial system had handed him an unfair sentence.
“The executions would be a form of legal breach and disobedience of the constitution”, Erasmus said.
Throughout the evening, lawyers and spiritual advisers of those sentenced to death came one by one to Cilacap’s sea port, the entry way to Nusakambangan island where executions by the government usually take place.
(AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary). Family members and relatives of Zulfikar Ali, convicted of drug crimes, demand his release during a protest, in Lahore, Pakistan, Wednesday, July 27, 2016.
Ban recalled that under global law, the death penalty should be used for the most serious crimes and said, “drug crimes are generally not considered to meet this threshold”.
Mr Ali’s wife, Siti Rouhani, who had nearly collapsed when she was informed of her husband’s execution on Thursday morning, said she was very grateful for the last minute reprieve. It said his case has not been properly reviewed by Indonesian authorities despite an internal government investigation casting doubt on the conviction for drug trafficking.
Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir defended the looming executions as “pure law enforcement”. Officials began tightening security at the prison several days ago, with more than 1,000 police sent to Cilacap, the port town, and the prisoners moved into isolation cells.
The Jakarta Post said the paper had been printed before it learned that only four convicts, not 14, were shot by firing squad.
Indonesia has become a “business field” for the production, distribution, import and export of drugs, Prasetyo said. He said there are “serious fair trial concerns” with several other prisoners’ cases. “They all have passed through all legal stages, including extraordinary appeals”.
Three Nigerians – Humphrey Jefferson Ejike Eleweke, Seck Osmane and Michael Titus Igweh and Indonesian Freddy Budiman – were killed by firing squad at 12.45am in the middle of torrential downpours.
“They felt they were targeted by the government of Indonesia only because they are Nigerians, only because they are Africans, and their governments did not do anything” to help them, he said. Authorities plan to execute 16 prisoners this year and more than double that number in 2017.
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The government of Jokowi’s predecessor did not carry out executions between 2009 and 2012, but resumed them in 2013. Associated Press writer Ali Kotarumalos contributed.
