TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
No technical problem hindered executions: Official
Last-minute stays of execution granted to 10 condemned drug convicts on Friday were not due to technical problems, as everything was well-prepared, a ministry official has said.
Change Size
A truck carrying funeral supplies enters a prison on Nusakambangan island in Cilacap, Central Java, on Wednesday morning, two days before the executions of four people early Friday. (JP/Agus Maryono)
L
ast-minute stays of execution granted to 10 condemned drug convicts on Friday were not due to technical problems, as everything was well-prepared beforehand, a ministry official has said.
“There was no technical problem at the prison. Operationally, everything went well,” Akbar Hadi, a spokesman for the Law and Human Rights Ministry’s Directorate General of Penitentiaries, told The Jakarta Post on Friday.
The government had earlier said that 14 people were to be executed early Friday on Nusakambangan prison island in Cilacap, Central Java. However, only four were executed: Indonesian Freddy Budiman, Seck Osmane from Senegal and Michael Titus and Humphrey Jefferson from Nigeria.
Jefferson’s lawyer, Ricky Gunawan, claimed to be unaware of the reason behind the stays of execution granted to the other 10 condemned.
“Both Humphrey and [fellow condemned drug convict] Merry Utami appealed for clemency before they received the official notification letters of their execution on Tuesday evening. However, Jefferson was executed while Merry was not,” Ricky, who is also one of Merry’s lawyers, told the Post.
He added that public pressure against Merry's execution might have been the reason for postponing her execution, while the Senegalese and Nigerian governments had declined to intervene to halt the execution of their citizens. (wnd/bbn)
