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Death penalty in Indonesia: an executioner's story

A police officer who has been part of an Indonesian firing squad tells how he and his prisoners prepare for the death sentence, and how he hopes those who are killed find their peace.

The Guardian has spoken to a police officer who has been part of the firing squad which operates on the prison island, Nusa Kambangan. His story is one that reveals the grim reality of Indonesia’s justice system but also the conflicting emotions of those responsible for upholding it.

Pulling the trigger is the easy part, the officer says as he contemplates the executions which are to come.

The worst part is the human touch, he says, the connection with those who are about to die. The executioner has to lace the prisoner’s limbs, hands and feet to a cross-shaped pole with thick rope. It is that final moment of brutal intimacy that haunts.

“The mental burden is heavier for the officers that are responsible for handling the prisoners rather than shooting them,” he says. “Because those officers are involved in picking them up, and tying their hands together, until they are gone.”

The officer – a young man who wanted to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of his role – is part of a wing of the Indonesian police corps known as the Mobile Brigade (“Brimob”).

Five Brimob officers are assigned to each prisoner, to escort them from the isolation cells in the middle of the night and accompany them to the clearing [in the jungle, where the prisoners are executed].

The officer says prisoners can “decide if they want to cover their face” before they are tied up to make sure their heart or the position of their body does not move.

Moments before, the prisoner has the option to seek religious counsel.

Using a thick rope known as “tali tambang” in Indonesian, the officer says he avoids speaking to the prisoners when he binds their hands behind their back and onto the poles, kneeling or standing as they wish, but that he treats the prisoners gently.

“I don’t make conversation with the prisoners. I treat them like they are a member of my own family,” he explains, “I say only, ‘I’m sorry, I am just doing the job.’

He says that by the time he escorts the prisoners from their cells to the clearing “they are resigned to their fate, as though it was written like lines on their palm”.

Of being part of the firing squad, the officer describes the experience with detachment.

“We just come in, grab the weapon, shoot, and wait for the dying to finish. Once the ‘bam’ of the gun we wait 10 minutes, if the doctor pronounces him dead then we return, that’s about it.”

The weapons are placed in position for the officers before the execution.

Of the few executions the officer has been involved in, each has gone according to plan.

“It doesn’t take more than five minutes to be over,” he said.

After they are shot he says: “They go limp directly, because there is no life.”

A doctor examines the prisoners to determine whether they are dead. If the prisoner is not dead, a designated officer is told to shoot them at close range in the head.


Source: The Guardian, March 6, 2015


Australia complains to Indonesia about treatment of Bali Nine pair

Senior police officer posing with Andrew Chan aboard
the plane that flew them to Nusakambangan Island.
Canberra to lodge official complaint after photographs emerge showing police official posing with Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran during transfer

The Australian government is lodging an official complaint with Indonesia about the treatment of death-row citizens Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.

Photographs emerged on Thursday of a senior Indonesian police official posing with the two men aboard the plane that flew them to Cilacap the previous day, amid expectations Chan and Sukumaran will be told their execution date “in a few days”.

In the pictures, published by Indonesian news outlet Tribun News, senior commissioner Djoko Hari Utomo is shown interacting with Chan and Sukumaran surrounded by paramilitary officers in balaclavas and helmets.

Guardian Australia understands the Australian government’s complaint will include the issue of the photographs but also the show of force surrounding the transfer of the men to the prison island.

Senior officials from Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade will seek to speak to the Indonesian ambassador on Friday.

The prime minister, Tony Abbott, told the Australian parliament showing clemency would represent Indonesia’s “best values”, as well as its best interests.

“How can it be in Indonesia’s interest to kill these two men who are helping Indonesia in the fight against drug crime?” he said, referring to the rehabilitation of the pair during their 10 years on death row.

“As Australians we abhor drug crime. We stand resolutely against drug crime, but we are against the death penalty as well.

“Pull back from this brink,” he asked the Indonesian president, Joko Widodo.

Widodo told al-Jazeera that he had considered both men’s cases but had to honour the court’s decision to execute them and up to nine others, including Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte, whom aid groups say suffers from schizophrenia.

“I think the decision was already taken by the court. We can’t discriminate between people from different countries,” Widodo said. “One more time, I am looking at our national interest.”

Click here to read the full article

Source: The Guardian, March 5, 2015

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