Indonesia’s attorney general has indicated he will respect court proceedings for 10 prisoners scheduled to be executed for drug crimes, but it is unclear whether all seven prisoners with outstanding appeals will have the chance to exhaust their legal avenues.
According to the Indonesian news outlet Kompas, HM Prasetyo told reporters in Yogyakarta on Monday it was not accurate to say the mass execution by firing squad was delayed, as “I never said the date of execution.”
But he indicated the executions of the 10 prisoners, including Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, were on hold pending legal appeals.
“Right now, we have to fulfil their legal rights even though they have already requested clemency,” he said.
Lawyers for Chan and Sukumaran will face a Jakarta court on Thursday to allow them to challenge a recent decision by the Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, to deny the men clemency on grounds of rehabilitation.
A Nigerian, Silvester Obiekwe, has an appeal next week in the same administrative court on different grounds. His lawyer, Farhat Abbas, will argue the previous lawyer’s power of attorney expired while the application for clemency was pending.
He went to Nusa Kambangan on Monday with a message for the prison governor. “Maybe tell the firing squad to go home first and don’t shoot our client while the constitutional process is still ongoing,” he told reporters.
He was also concerned about the politicisation of Indonesia’s death penalty issue after a former president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, claimed she had told Widodo to go through with the executions of death row drug offenders.
Megawati is the chair of Widodo’s Indonesian Democratic party and is often criticised for her influence over policy.
“There’s a possibility the grounds for this ... is not based on sound consideration or the constitution, but intervention from someone who feels they can influence the president of Indonesia,” Farhat said.
A Frenchman sentenced to death for smuggling heroin, Serge Areski Atlaoui, has applied for a judicial review, which will be heard on Wednesday.
On Monday the administrative court threw out a challenge to a clemency rejection for another Nigerian, Raheem Agbaje Salami, but his lawyers say they will appeal.
The family for the only Indonesian man in the condemned group, Zainal Abidin, said they also had an outstanding judicial review which had been pending for years.
A Brazilian, Rodrigo Gularte, who advocates say suffers from schizophrenia, is awaiting a report on a second opinion on his mental health, according to the attorney general’s spokesman, Tony Spontana.
But the only decision officials have confirmed they are awaiting is that of a Filipino drug smuggler, Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso, the only one of the group who is not yet on Nusa Kambangan.
The Indonesian supreme court is considering her application for a second judicial review, and coordinating minister for politics, law and security, Tedjo Edhie Purdjiant, said on Monday the decision would be sped up.
Source: The Guardian, March 10, 2015
