Indonesia on Thursday night executed four
convicted drug traffickers, including three
Nigerians, leaving the fate of 10 others
uncertain.
The Nigerians and an Indonesian man were
shot by firing squad during a thunderstorm
on Nusakambangan Island in Central Java,
as the government ignored international calls
for clemency and pushed ahead with what it
considers a war on drugs.
The Indonesian government said on
Wednesday that 14 prisoners, including
citizens of India, Pakistan, and Zimbabwe,
would be executed this weekend.
An official said on Wednesday that the
planned executions would go ahead “in
stages” but declined to give a timeframe.
Security was stepped up at the Indonesian
embassy in Abuja on Thursday as protesters
gathered to urge Indonesia to halt the
executions.
Indian and Pakistani officials said they were
making last-minute efforts to save their
citizens.
“We considered several factors and decided
that for now four death-row inmates would
be executed,” Noor Rachmad, an official at
the attorney general’s office, told reporters
shortly after Thursday’s executions.
Reacting to the execution, the spokesperson
for the National Drug Law Enforcement
Agency, Mitchell Ofoyeju, said it was
unfortunate the agency could not stop the
process.
He added that Indonesian authorities should
have reduced the punishment to life
imprisonment rather than killing of the
convicts which he described as
“unfashionable.”
He said, “It is a pathetic thing to see fellow
citizens being killed abroad for drug-related
offences. As an agency, we feel for the
families of those affected. As much as we
could not stop the country (Indonesia), we
would have loved if the execution could be
changed to life imprisonment. Capital
punishment is no longer fashionable.”
Just over a year ago, Indonesia executed 14
prisoners, mostly foreign drugs offenders,
causing diplomatic outrage.
Rights activists and governments have again
called on Indonesia to abolish the death
penalty.
But that has gone unheeded by the
government of President Joko Widodo, who
insisted that drugs posed as serious a threat
as terrorism to humanity.
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.
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