RI workers on death row overseas

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Thu, 02/08/2007 4:57 PM

Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A total of 17 Indonesian migrant workers face death sentences in Malaysia and Singapore for their involvement in murder and drug cases, and several may soon be executed unless they appeal for acquittal or to have their sentences commuted.

The outgoing director general for labor placement and protection at the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry, I Gusti Made Arke, said Wednesday that 15 of the workers had been convicted in Malaysia for marijuana possession. He said the remaining two were sentenced in Singapore for their involvement in murder cases.

In addition, sources at the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry said Wednesday that four migrant workers had received death sentences in Saudi Arabia for their involvement in murder cases.

Made Arke said the government had provided legal assistance and protection for the 15 Indonesian workers in Malaysia, even though they had entered the neighboring country illegally and were working there without proper documents.

He said the government could not interfere in the internal affairs of the Malaysian courts. Instead, it relied on the abilities of the lawyers hired to accompany the defendants. Malaysia enforces harsh penalties in drug cases.

Dozens of Indonesian migrant workers have been sentenced to death in drug and murder cases in the past seven years.

Made Arke also revealed that three other Indonesian workers previously sentenced to death by a district court in Singapore had already had their sentences commuted to 10 years, 20 years and a life sentence, after successfully appealing to the Singaporean Supreme Court.

Malik Harahap, a former labor attache in Malaysia, said most of the Indonesian workers facing the death sentence in Malaysia were Acehnese. He said many Acehnese went to work there during the years of armed separatist conflict in Aceh, and in the wake of a devastating earthquake and tsunami in December 2004.

Malaysian employers reportedly employed many Acehnese rebels for years, before the central government signed a peace agreement with the Acehnese separatist movement in Helsinki in August 2005.

Asked about 418 Indonesian workers stranded at the Indonesian Embassy in Kuwait, Made Arke said only 173 were still sheltering at the embassy, while the remaining 245 had been repatriated after their cases were settled with their employers.

""The workers were employed as housemaids and fled their workplaces after they were involved in disputes with their employers. The disputes were triggered by the withholding of their monthly wages and the fact that many workers had been mistreated by their employers or the employers' relatives,"" he said.

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