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Indonesia announces new round of executions
Sydney Morning Herald - May 9, 2016
Central Java police spokesman Alloysius Liliek Darmanto told Fairfax Media about 130 officers from BRIMOB – Indonesia's special police operations force – had been prepared to carry out the executions.
"The current number [of prisoners to be executed] is still 13," he said. "We don't have details of the names. We just wait for instruction from the Attorney-General's Office."
In a further sign the executions are imminent, three prisoners on death row for drug offences were on Sunday night transferred from Batam to Nusakambangan, where the executions will take place.
The three Indonesians – Suryanto, 53, Agus Hadi, 53, and Pudjo Lestari, 42, – were taken to Batu island, one of seven prisons on the island known as Indonesia's Alcatraz.
Last year 14 people – including Australians Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan – were executed by firing squad in Indonesia.
The executions led to international condemnation, with several countries whose citizens were killed, including Australia, temporarily withdrawing their ambassadors in protest.
Further executions were put on hold for a year, ostensibly because of the weak economy, however Indonesian authorities have confirmed they are now preparing for a third round. The prisoners are expected to be given only 72 hours notice of their deaths, as mandated by Indonesian law.
Chief security minister Luhut Panjaitan recently said Indonesia wanted to avoid the "soap opera" surrounding last year's executions, when speculation about the date dragged on for months.
Foreigners on death row for drug offences include Filipina maid Mary-Jane Veloso, Briton Lindsay Sandiford and Frenchman Serge Atlaoui.
Veloso, a domestic worker, was saved from the last round of executions on April 29 last year at the eleventh hour, after her alleged human trafficker surrendered on the day Veloso was due to be shot.
The mother of two, who was arrested in 2010 in Yogyakarta with 2.6 kilograms of heroin in the lining of her suitcase, has always maintained her innocence, insisting she was duped into smuggling the drugs.
Attorney-General Muhammad Prasetyo has said Veloso will not be part of the latest round of executions, because the trial of her alleged human trafficker, Maria Kristina Sergio, is still proceeding in the Philippines.
Serge Atlaoui was also due to be executed last year alongside Chan, Sukumaran and six others but won a reprieve because his appeal had not been heard in the Administrative Court. However his future is uncertain after the appeal was subsequently rejected in June.
Atlaoui, a welder and father of five, was arrested in 2005 in a meth lab in Tangerang, west of Jakarta. He insisted he was merely installing equipment in what he thought was an acrylics factory.
Atlaoui was arrested with 17 others. Several were also sentenced to death, including five Chinese nationals who recently had their case review rejected by the Supreme Court.
Lindsay Sandiford, 59, was sentenced to death in Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking cocaine worth an estimated £1.6 million ($3 million).
She said she agreed to carry the drugs after a drug syndicate threatened to kill her son. Sandiford last year described Chan, whom she met in Bali's Kerobokan jail, as "one of the heroes of my life".
Source: http://www.smh.com.au/world/indonesia-announces-new-round-of-executions-20160509-goq443.html.
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