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

Report an error, an omission: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com

Texas | Death Sentence Overturned After 48 Years

The Court of Criminal Appeals ruled Thursday that Clarence Jordan’s punishment was unconstitutional A death sentence handed down by a Harris County jury in 1978 was overturned Thursday by the Court of Criminal Appeals. Clarence Jordan, 70, has been on Texas Death Row for almost 50 years, serving out one of the longest death sentences in the nation while suffering from intellectual disabilities and schizophrenia, his attorney told the Houston Press.

Florida | Tampa Bay man who killed wife, 3 family members sentenced to die

Shelby Nealy will be executed by the state for bludgeoning his wife’s family to death in 2018, a judge decided Friday. During a two-week sentencing trial in July, jurors heard how Nealy, 32, ended a volatile relationship with his second wife by killing her, then murdered her parents and brother a year later in an effort to never be caught. He pleaded guilty to the crimes in 2023. On July 25, the jury of three men and nine women deliberated for about two hours and voted 11-1 that Nealy should be sentenced to death. He stared straight ahead as the verdict was read.

US AG Authorizes Federal Prosecutors to Seek Death Penalty for Three LA Gangsters Charged with Murder

Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche has directed federal prosecutors in Los Angeles to seek the death penalty against three members of a transnational street gang charged with murdering a former gang member who was cooperating with law enforcement on a racketeering and methamphetamine trafficking case, officials announced Thursday. In a letter to First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli on Wednesday, Blanche told prosecutors in the Central District of California they are “authorized and directed” to seek the death penalty against Dennis Anaya Urias, 27, Grevil Zelaya Santiago, 26, and Roberto Carlos Aguilar, 31. All are from South Los Angeles.

Texas appeals court says another man's confession not enough to reconsider Broadnax execution

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said Tuesday it won't consider another man's confession as a reason to pause a scheduled lethal injection in three weeks. James Broadnax was convicted of murdering two Christian music producers in Garland, but his cousin, Demarius Cummings, recently confessed that he was the shooter. University of Texas School of Law Capital Punishment Clinic professor Jim Marcus said the appeals court acts as a gatekeeper for cases meeting criteria to get back in court.

Florida Schedules Two Executions for Late April

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Governor Ron DeSantis has directed the Florida Department of Corrections to move forward with two executions scheduled for late April 2026, marking a significant ramp-up in the state's use of capital punishment. The scheduled deaths of Chadwick Willacy and James Ernest Hitchcock follow a series of landmark judicial rulings that have kept both men on death row for decades.

Saudi Arabia | Seven executed for drug trafficking

Saudi authorities executed seven people who had been convicted of drug trafficking in a single day, state media says. The Saudi Press Agency says five Saudis and two Jordanians were found guilty of trafficking amphetamine pills into the kingdom. “The death penalty was carried out as a discretionary punishment against the perpetrators,” the agency reports, adding that the executions took place on Sunday in the Riyadh region. Since the beginning of 2026, Riyadh has executed 38 people in drug-related cases, the majority of the 61 executions carried out, according to an AFP tally based on official data.

20 Minutes to Death: Witness to the Last Execution in France

The following document is a firsthand account of the final moments of Hamida Djandoubi, a convicted murderer executed by guillotine at Marseille’s Baumettes Prison on September 10, 1977. The record—dated September 9—was written by Monique Mabelly, a judge appointed by the state to witness the proceedings. Djandoubi’s execution would ultimately be the last carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981. At the time, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing—who had publicly voiced his "deep aversion to the death penalty" prior to his election—rejected Djandoubi’s appeal for clemency. Choosing to let "justice take its course," the President allowed the execution to proceed, just as he had in two previous cases during his term: Christian Ranucci , executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein , executed on June 23, 1977. Hamida Djandoubi , a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet. He was execu...

Former FedEx driver pleads guilty to killing 7-year-old girl after making delivery at her Texas home

FORT WORTH, Texas — Tanner Lynn Horner, a former contract delivery driver for FedEx, pleaded guilty Tuesday to the 2022 capital murder and aggravated kidnapping of 7-year-old Athena Strand, a move that abruptly shifted the proceedings into a high-stakes punishment phase where jurors will decide between life imprisonment and the death penalty. Horner, 34, entered the plea in a Tarrant County courtroom as his trial was set to begin. The case was moved to Fort Worth from neighboring Wise County last year after defense attorneys argued that pretrial publicity would prevent a fair trial in the community where the girl disappeared.

North Carolina | “Incapable to proceed”: man who killed Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska ruled incompetent

DeCarlos Brown, accused of stabbing Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte train, has been found mentally unfit for trial, stalling death penalty proceedings. DeCarlos Brown Jr., accused of fatally stabbing 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light rail train in August 2025, has been found mentally incapable of standing trial, according to a court motion filed 7 April in Mecklenburg Superior Court. A 29 December 2025 report from Central Regional Hospital, a state psychiatric facility in Granville County, concluded that Brown was "incapable to proceed to trial," according to the motion filed by his attorney, Daniel Roberts. The evaluation was ordered after Brown's defense raised concerns about his mental state.

China executes Frenchman convicted in 2010 for drug trafficking

Chan Thao Phoumy, a 62-year-old Frenchman born in Laos, was executed, “despite the efforts of the French authorities, including efforts to obtain a pardon on humanitarian grounds for our compatriot”, said a foreign ministry statement. Phoumy, who was born in Laos, had been sentenced to death in 2010 following a conviction for drug trafficking. Despite sustained diplomatic pressure and formal requests for clemency on humanitarian grounds, Chinese authorities proceeded with the capital sentence. A massive drug manufacturing and distribution operation Chan Thao Phoumy was convicted for his involvement in a massive drug manufacturing and distribution operation that remains one of the largest drug-related cases in Chinese history. Phoumy and his accomplices were convicted of manufacturing approximately 8 tons of crystal methamphetamine between 1999 and 2003.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog