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t was a grim scene in the early hours of Friday as officers prepared for the executions of death row convicts on the high-security prison island of Nusakambangan in Cilacap, Central Java.

Mortician Suhendro Putro said there was a heavy downpour and lightning prior to the executions.

“It was really horrifying. The rain was very heavy with lightning. It was also very dark. Never has an execution been so terrifying like that before,” Suhendro told The Jakarta Post on Friday afternoon.

He said rain started to fall over Nusakambangan at 11 p.m. on Thursday. At 12:46 a.m., he said, he heard gunshots. Some 15 minutes later, the bodies of four executed inmates were handed over to the team of morticians and religious clerics.

“The police handed over the bodies to us for washing. They were all dead [and then we] stitched up [the bullet holes] and treated [the bodies] with formalin,” Suhendro said.

He added that there were 24 personnel in the team tasked with taking care of the bodies.

“We, from Catholic and Javanese Christian churches, took care of three bodies. The body of Freddy Budiman was taken care by the clerics’ group because he was a Muslim,” said Suhendro, adding that Freddy’s body was the first to be handed over to the team.

He said it took about one-and-an-half hours to prepare the bodies, before they were ready to be placed in coffins. He said it took a relatively short time because of the large number of personnel available. They had previously prepared to take care of 14 bodies.

“At first we did not believe it because as far as we knew there would be 14 bodies. It turned out to be true,” said Suhendro, adding that only four of 14 prepared ambulances were used.

Head of the correctional division of the Law and Human Rights Ministry’s Central Java office, Molyanto, who was on Nusakambangan during the executions, shared a similar story, saying the site of the executions was horrifying.

In relation to the number of inmates executed, Molyanto said he had no idea why the change had occurred. He said the decision was under the authority of the Attorney General’s Office (AGO).

“Our task was making sure that Nusakambangan was ready for the executions,” he said.

Suhendro and Molyanto were not the only people left puzzled about the situation. The spiritual mentors and lawyers of the convicts were also surprised by the turn of events.

Catholic priest Antonious Nugroho Bimo Prakoso, a spiritual counselor for Merri Utami, told the Post he learned that Merri was spared from execution after the AGO’s deputy attorney general for general crimes, Noor Rachmad, told a press briefing shortly after the executions that only four of the 14 convicts were killed.

Antonious said all counselors were asked to assemble around 11 p.m., when prison guards called out the names of Freddy Budiman, Seck Osmani, Humprey Eijeke and Michael Titus.

“We, the counselors for those whose names were not mentioned, were asked to leave,” Antonius said.

He added that he and the other counselors could only guess at what was happening because they were not given any information. “We were assuming that the executions would take place in batches. We were holding our breath to see if more names were called out. But they were not.”

Like Antonius, Ricky Gunawan, the lawyer for Eijeke, also said he was fully informed of what had happened after the executions were carried out.