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Anguish as Indonesia fast-tracks execution of 14 death row prisoners
Sydney Morning Herald - July 28, 2016
Authorities have told the families of 14 prisoners on death row that their loved ones will die 24 hours earlier than planned.
Lawyers and embassy staff were also grim-faced as they emerged from the prosecutor's office in Cilacap on Thursday after being informed the deaths of the eight Nigerians, four Indonesians, one Indian and one Pakistani were just hours away.
The executions were proceeding despite nine of the condemned filing last-minute clemency pleas and pressure to postpone the executions amid growing evidence that some of those facing the firing squad could be innocent.
"This is just insane, it should be tomorrow," said the director of the Community Legal Aid Institute, Ricky Gunawan, who was filing clemency pleas on behalf of Indonesian woman Merri Utami and Nigerian Humphrey Jefferson Ejike Eleweke.
Human rights lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis said at least three of those facing the firing squad – Mr Eleweke, Ms Utami and Pakistani textile worker Zulfiqar Ali – may have received wrongful judgments. "In the name of justice, they deserve a retrial," Dr Mulya said.
He said many had not lodged clemency pleas until the 11th hour because that would be to admit guilt and they insisted they were innocent. "This third round of executions is the largest number of people ever executed in Indonesia's history – it's unprecedented," Dr Mulya said.
The sister-in-law of Michael Titus Igweh, who alleged police had applied electricity to his genitals to force him to confess to heroin possession, said his final request had been to see his wife and family for the last time. Soldiers and police arrive at Cilacap, the port of departure for Nusakambangan, where the executions will take place.
However she said Mr Igweh's wife was in West Africa and would not arrive in Indonesia until Friday – hours after her husband was killed.
"Yesterday I met Titus and he was angry and upset," Nila said. "He said: 'What kind of justice is this? What kind of country is Indonesia?'"
Nila said she had chosen to sacrifice her last-ever visit to Mr Igweh in order to tell his story to the media: "At this time I believe there are two things that can help Titus, one is God and one is the media. If that was the last time to see Titus, then so be it."
The wife of Mr Ali, Siti Rouhani, nearly collapsed as she left the prosecutor's office in Cilacap and then wept into her phone. She told Fairfax Media a prosecutor had called her that morning asking what she would like done with her husband's body on Thursday night.
A former senior government official told Fairfax Media that ex-president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had ignored the findings of an internal investigation that found Mr Ali was an innocent victim of conspiracy.
On Thursday morning 17 ambulances – 14 containing coffins – were ferried to Nusakambangan, known as Indonesia's Alcatraz, where the prisoners will be strapped to wooden posts and shot dead by a firing squad.
Police leaked grisly details to the media about the logistics of executions, including the size of the coffins, which were as long as 190 centimetres for some of the Africans.
They said 198 executioners would be deployed, 140 guards, 70 equipment personnel and a 16-person sterilisation team.
Each convict would require chains, a padlock, white aprons, a head cover, a pole, a chair, a marking sticker, a plastic bag for their belongings and scissors.
Ms Utami's daughter, Christa, clutched a pink pillow and wiped away tears as she told Fairfax Media she had been able to fulfil her mother's final wish – meeting her grandson for the first time.
"I feel happy she got to hold him and kiss him. Looking at her isolation cell made me think of how comfortable my life is compared to the way my mother had to end her life. I want more time to do everything with my mother, but in reality these are the facts – we have to say goodbye."
Ms Utami, a former migrant worker in Taiwan, was arrested at Jakarta airport in 2001 with 1.1 kilograms of heroin in her handbag, which her then boyfriend had given her.
"My mother was a victim," Christa said. "She had no idea what was in the bag. She was not a drug dealer, she was just an unwitting courier."
Ms Utami did not learn that a judicial review into her case had been rejected until this week, even though the court document was stamped August 2014.
Christa said that had she been informed of the court's decision earlier, she would have applied for presidential clemency. Now it was too late.
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