Unswayed by World Leaders’ Pleas, Jokowi Pushes Ahead With Executions

Indonesian gunboats guard the waters surrounding Nusakambangan

prison island where Indonesia carries out its executions.

‘Firm Stance’: Indonesia’s unyielding position on capital punishment has transformed into an issue of national pride

Jakarta. President Joko Widodo said on Tuesday the planned execution of 11 convicts on death row, most on drugs charges, would not be delayed despite concerted pleas from several world leaders. Instead, he warned foreign countries not to intervene with his government’s right to impose the capital punishment.

Joko has denied clemency to the death-row prisoners despite repeated pleas for mercy from Australia, Brazil and France, all of whom have citizens due to be executed by an Indonesian firing squad.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon made a similar appeal to Indonesia last Friday.

Eleven inmates are due to face the firing squad after Joko rejected their requests for clemency in January.

“I will say this firmly: no one may intervene with the executions because it is our sovereign right to exercise our laws,” Joko told reporters.

He said he had taken calls from the leaders of France, Brazil and the Netherlands about Indonesia’s use of the death penalty but made no mention of Australia.

Two Australians are among the 11 on death row.

The president did not say when the executions would be carried out.

In a special interview with BeritaSatu Media Holdings on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi asserted that Indonesia would not back down from its decision to execute foreign drug-trafficking inmates on death row, even despite risks of disrupting diplomatic ties with the prisoners’ countries of origin.

“Indonesia is always open [to suggestions]. Wherever I go, I always say that we’re ready to cooperate, to boost our partnerships with any countries and we’ve communicated with them under the spirit of friendship,” Retno said in her office in Jakarta. “But when it reaches a point where they offend our dignity as a nation, that is where we must take a firm and dignified stance [against them].”

The minister was speaking in light of a diplomatic row with Brazil and an increasingly heated dispute with Australia over the execution of a Brazilian in January, as well as the planned executions of another Brazilian and two Australian nationals slated for next month.

Indonesia ended its unofficial moratorium on the death penalty last month [January 2015] when it executed six prisoners, five of whom were foreign nationals.

Joko has repeatedly asserted that Indonesia is in a “state of emergency” concerning drug use, citing National Narcotics Agency (BNN) data, which claim Indonesia has over 4.5 million drug users. Between 40 and 50 people, the agency says, die every day from drug use.

Opponents of the death penalty have disputed these figures.

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Source: The Jakarta Globe, February 25, 2015

Will Widodo the Merciful Ever Have to Beg for Clemency?

229 Indonesians face death penalty abroad

The Foreign Ministry stated on Tuesday that there were 229 Indonesians abroad facing capital punishment for various crimes.

"Most of them are in Malaysia with 168 cases, Saudi Arabia with 38 and China with 15," stated the ministry's directorate for Indonesian nationals' protection and legal aid as quoted by Antara news agency.

The directorate also revealed that 131 of the cases were related to drugs, while 77 of them were related to murder.

"Regarding the drug cases, 112 are in Malaysia, 15 in China, 2 in Laos, 1 in Singapore and another one in Vietnam," the directorate stated.The Foreign Ministry had handled 9,290 legal cases abroad as of September 2014, with most of the cases relating to migrant workers and ship crewmembers.

Source: The Jakarta Post, February 24, 2015

Military aircraft to fly convicts to Central Java

Sukhoi jet fighters in Bali

Bali Prosecutor’s Office chief Momock Bambang Samiarso has confirmed media reports that the two Australians convicted of drug trafficking will be flown by military aircraft to Nusakambangan prison island in Central Java, where they will face the firing squad in the near future.

His announcement was a follow-up to a statement by Maj. Gen. Torry Djohar Banguntoro of the Udayana Regional Military Command (Kodam IX), covering Bali and East and West Nusa Tenggara, on Monday. Torry said that the Indonesian Military would deploy a squadron of Sukhoi jet fighters to escort the transfer of the two Australians, Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, from Kerobokan prison in Denpasar to Nusakambangan.

“Yes, it has already been decided,” Momock said on Tuesday, without specifying what type of aircraft would be used in the operation.

Three Sukhoi jet fighters arrived in Bali from Sultan Hasanuddin Air Force base in Makassar, South Sulawesi, on Monday. The aircraft have been parked at the air base at Ngurah Rai International Airport. Colibri-type helicopters and CN-295 aircraft have also been seen at the air base.

The Air Force, however, has denied that the jet fighters are there to safeguard the transfer of the two convicts. A spokesman has described the arrival of the planes as a coincidence.

“We haven’t received any order to escort the death-row prisoners. The jet fighters are in Bali for a joint exercise with Air Force personnel at the Ngurah Rai Air Force base,” Air Force spokesman Air Commodore Hadi Tjahjanto said on Tuesday.

He insisted that the jet fighters were also conducting routine patrols securing Indonesia’s air territory and its borders.

“We’re also conducting the same patrols and exercises at Tarakan, Biak and Medan. These are routine patrols,” Hadi said.

However, Hadi added that the Air Force would always be ready if the government ordered them to secure the transfer.

“No matter what happens, we are always ready,” he said.

Eleven death-row convicts, including Chan and Sukumaran, are scheduled to be executed in Nusakambangan despite a global outcry.

Meanwhile, National Commission on Human Rights commissioner Natalius Pigai visited the two prisoners at Kerobokan prison.

He praised the contribution of the two Australians in teaching skills to other inmates.

“My conclusion is they are good mentors and have made a big contribution, especially to our people […] They have transferred their skills to thousands of prisoners since 2008,” Pigai said.

Chan and Sukumaran, members of the so-called Bali Nine gang of Australian drug smugglers, were arrested when they attempted to smuggle 8.3 kilograms of heroin from Indonesia to Australia seven years ago.

Source: The Jakarta Post, February 25, 2015

Island firing range where Bali Nine duo will meet their end revealed

Nusakambangan Island Firing Range (source: ninemsn)

This is the firing range where Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran will be executed.

The site is located behind a police station and near the water on the prison island of Nusakambangan in central Java, Indonesia.

It was inaugurated at a ceremony last November and is the same site where five drug traffickers were shot dead after midnight on January 18, News Corp reports.

The photo, taken at night, shows how the firing range will be flood lit for the impending executions of the Bali duo and eight others.

It also shows the targets the firing squad use for practice, with the round objects on the target posts set at the average height of a person's heart.

The earthen wall behind the posts is for absorbing rounds behind where the condemned men will stand.

Each victim will face their own 12-man firing squad, with only three shooters in each squad issued with live rounds.

The firing range is set well apart from the high-security prison where Chan and Sukumaran will spend their final days in isolation cells.

News Corp reports that 10 coffins have now arrived in central Java in readiness for the executions.

Source: ninemsn, February 26, 2015 (local time)

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Florida | Former warden recalls botched electrocution that left him battling PTSD for 13 years and turned him into an abolitionist

Ron McAndrew anticipated it would be just another standard execution. He had been assigned to carry out the death of Cuban refugee Pedro Medina via electric chair within the confines of Florida State Prison. Fifteen years had passed since Medina's conviction for the murder of 52-year-old Dorothy James, and McAndrew's responsibility was to oversee the administration of lethal electrical currents to his brain. Having already supervised two previous executions using the identical procedure and raised in a community that strongly supported capital punishment, he expected a swift conclusion with justice delivered.

Two Executions In Six Hours: Florida Set For Historical Double Execution Tuesday

Florida is preparing to execute two death row inmates on Tuesday, July 28, in an action that would mark the state’s first double execution in more than 60 years. Former police officer James Duckett, 68, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 12 p.m., followed six hours later by 80-year-old Dominick Occhicone at 6 p.m. If carried out, these will mark the 39th and 40th executions under Gov. Ron DeSantis and the 11th and 12th in the state since the beginning of 2026. In response, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) has launched petition and letter-writing efforts asking DeSantis to halt both procedures. The group has organized two public vigils outside Florida State Prison in Raiford, set for 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., contingent on whether stays are issued.

Florida executes Dominick Occhicone

Florida executes 2 men in a day. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has made Florida's death chamber the nation’s busiest at the end of his final term. STARKE, Fla. — Florida on Tuesday became the first state in nearly a decade to carry out two executions in a single day, the last an 80-year-old man who was the second-oldest inmate known to receive a lethal injection in modern U.S. history. Hours earlier, the state executed a former police officer convicted of killing a young girl.

Florida executes James Duckett

Double execution: 1st of 2 inmates is put to death in Florida Florida has executed James Duckett, a 68-year-old former cop convicted of killing an 11-year-old girl in 1987. The state is set to execute an 80-year-old man 6 hours later for a 1986 murder. Florida carried out the 1st double execution in more than 60 years, executing former police officer James Duckett and later scheduling the execution of 80‑year‑old Dominick Occhicone, amid Governor Ron DeSantis’s aggressive push to increase death penalties in the state. Florida has put to death the 1st of 2 inmates in the state's 1st double execution in more than 60 years amid an aggressive death penalty push by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Florida | 49 years on death row, killer of Bonita Springs teen learns death date

A Fort Myers man on death row for nearly five decades learned his execution date as Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his order Thursday, July 30. Harold Gene Lucas, then 24, shot and killed his 16-year-old girlfriend, Anthia Jill Piper in Bonita Springs on August 14, 1976. Lucas was 24 when he was charged in Piper's shooting death at her parents' home on Aug. 14, 1976. The execution is set for Sept. 1 in a state that has accelerated its pace under DeSantis the past two years, with a record of 19 executions in 2025. Piper was shot seven times by Lucas, who claimed to be intoxicated.

North Korea | 'I was only 9': North Korean defector recalls childhood memory of public execution

Kim Eun-joo was 9 years old when her teacher stopped their lesson and told the class to follow her outside. The children were marched to a public execution ground in North Korea. “I would cry even when our family dog died,” Kim said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. “But the first time I watched humans killing a human, I had no words for what I was feeling. It was the most brutal scene I have ever seen, in any movie or in real life.” The memory has stayed with her ever since. Now a human rights advocate after defecting from North Korea, Kim recently brought that childhood scene to the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris, where North Korea’s use of public executions and capital punishment was officially placed on the agenda for the first time.

USA | What happens in the final weeks before an execution? These reporters were inside the room.

The journalists behind ‘The Last 12 Weeks’ earned extraordinary access to a death penalty defense team—and faced difficult ethical choices Many defense lawyers are naturally cagey. They work in a pressure cooker, protecting their clients’ rights while fighting for the best possible outcome. And arguably, the stakes can’t get any higher than trying to save a client’s life. So no, defense lawyers don’t usually invite journalists into strategy meetings. But that’s what happened when Marshall Project reporter Maurice Chammah and Serial Productions senior producer Alvin Melathe spent the final few months before a Texas execution embedded with a capital defense team.

Iran erects iron gallows in Isfahan protest square

An iron gallows has been erected in an Isfahan square where protests erupted in January. Families of several of the 10 remaining prisoners sentenced to death have been summoned for farewell visits. An iron gallows erected in Ali-Khani Square in the central Iranian city of Isfahan has raised fears that the regime is preparing to publicly execute protesters arrested during nationwide demonstrations in January. Sources who spoke with Iran International said large numbers of security forces had been deployed in the area, while the families of several prisoners sentenced to death had been summoned to the prison for farewell visits.

19 July 1943 | Auschwitz's Largest Public Hanging: 12 Polish Prisoners Executed in Escape Reprisal

OSWIECIM, Poland — The SS carried out the largest public hanging in Auschwitz history on July 19, 1943, executing 12 Polish prisoners before other inmates as collective punishment for escapes and civilian contacts. The victims, all from the camp’s surveyors’ labor unit, were hanged on gallows built in front of the camp kitchen during an Auschwitz I roll call. The SS orchestrated this reprisal following prisoner escapes from the surveyors’ detail and unauthorized communication between inmates and civilians. Camp authorities used the recent escapes as a pretext to impose collective punishment.

Former Florida cop to be executed on same day as 80-year-old Pasco man

In an unprecedented move in the modern history of capital punishment, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday cleared the way for 2 executions to occur on the same day. DeSantis reset the execution of James Duckett, whose execution earlier this year was stayed amid efforts to secure DNA testing and analysis of evidence in his case. Duckett’s execution was reset for July 28. That is the same day previously set for the execution of Dominick Occhicone. Court records indicate that Duckett’s execution is scheduled for noon. Occhicone’s is set to follow at 6 p.m.

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