Indonesia: Police "ready for executions"

Pasir Putih Prison on Nusakambangan Island,
Central Java, Indonesia

The police are making assurances that the prison island of Nusakambangan in Cilacap, Central Java, is ready for the executions of death row convicts, including the Bali 9 duo.

Cilacap Police Chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Ulung Sampurna Jaya said that they were only waiting for the order to commence the executions.

"We are very ready. It's now just a matter of pressing the button," Ulung said as an analogy during an interview with The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

According to him, additional special personnel had been assigned to the areas around the Wijaya Pura Pier, the official entrance gate to the prison island, since all officials and visitors to the prisons land on the island after a 7-minute ride from Cilacap on the mainland on board a ship provided by the Nusakambangan correctional facility office.

Ulung said that he had received messages indicating that the executions of 2 members of the Bali 9 would be conducted in February, but the exact date had yet to be revealed.

"That's why we prepare the squad to remain ready so that any time there is a command there will be no problem," Ulung said.

The Attorney General's Office has revealed a plan to execute another 11 death row convicts, including drug convicts, who are on the prison island.

Attorney General HM Prasetyo said on Thursday that as an isolated island Nusakambangan was considered an ideal place for executions in terms of security. On Jan. 18, the government executed an Indonesian and 5 foreign nationals for their involvement in drug trafficking. Some of the executions took place on Nusakambangan Island. The list of the 11 convicts to be executed include drug convicts Rodrigo Gularte of Brazil, Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso of the Philippines, Serge Areski Atlaoui of France, Martin Anderson alias Belo of Ghana, Raheem Agbaje Salami of Spain and Zainal Abidin of Indonesia. 3 Indonesian murder convicts, Syofial, Sargawi and Harun, are also on the list.

2 Australians - Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran - are also said to be among those to soon be executed. Sukumaran, 33, and Chan, 31, are being detained at Kerobokan Penitentiary. They are 2 of 9 Australians, the so-called Bali 9 group, who were convicted for attempting to smuggle about 8 kilograms of heroin from Bali to Australia in 2005. Their clemency pleas were officially rejected by President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo this month.

Despite the denial of their requests for clemency, lawyers for the 2 Australian drug smugglers are pushing forward with efforts to save their clients from execution.The pair's legal team said they were planning to file for a 2nd case review (PK) with the Denpasar District Court, arguing that the convicts had reformed themselves after serving more than 10 years in prison.

According to an existing regulation issued by the Supreme Court, a convict can request only 1 additional case review in order to establish legal certainty. The team submitted a PK in 2010 that was rejected.

Nusakambangan is home to around 1,500 high-profile inmates and has often been the venue for executions. It is considered secure as it is located about 2 km off the Teluk Penyu beach, Cilacap.

There are 2 execution sites on the island: the Nirbaya and Li- musbuntu shooting fields.

Source: Jakarta Post, January 30, 2015

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