Jokowi urged to publicly announce clemency decisions

A justice reform watchdog has urged the government to publicly reveal information about stays of execution for death row convicts.

The Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR) regretted the government's decision to execute four drug convicts on Nusakambangan prison island in the early hours of Friday. A firing squad killed Indonesian Freddy Budiman, Seck Osmane from Senegal and Nigerians Michael Titus and Humphrey Ejike, despite international and local pleas to halt the executions.

3 of the convicts - Freddy, Ejike and Osmane - had requested pardons from President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, ICJR executive director Supriyadi W. Eddyono said on Friday, lambasting the executions. The 2010 Clemency Law stipulates that the death penalty cannot be carried out before a convict receives a presidential decree declining clemency.

The government used reasons of confidentiality to protect information on whether the President granted or declined the convicts' requests.

"We already filed a lawsuit against the State Secretariat with the Central Information Commission [KIP] on the openness of information. We won, but the State Secretariat appealed to the State Administrative Court," he told thejakartapost.com.

The Attorney General's Office announced on Friday that the executed convicts had judicial reviews of their cases rejected twice by the Supreme Court, which made their sentences final and binding.

It was a different situation for 10 other drug convicts who were initially listed for execution but still had ongoing legal processes. The 4 executed convicts were major drug traffickers, which lead to the decision to execute them by firing squad on the notorious high-security prison island.

Source: The Jakarta Post, July 30, 2016

ICJ condemns the executions in Indonesia

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) has condemned the executions of 4 persons in Indonesia.

According to a press release on July 29, the ICJ vigorously calls on the Government of Indonesia to impose an immediate moratorium and take steps towards the abolition of the death penalty in the country.

The execution of these 4 persons is reprehensible. Indonesia should stop further executions, said Sam Zarifi, ICJ's Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific.

These executions damage Indonesia's standing in the international community since they go against the growing international consensus around the world to abolish the death penalty, he added.

Michael Titus Igweh

The individuals executed shortly after midnight on July 29 were Freddy Budiman (Indonesia), Seck Osmane (Nigeria), Michael Titus Igweh (Nigeria), Humphrey Jefferson Ejike Eleweke (Nigeria).

Indonesia is a current member of the United Nations Human Rights Council, having been first elected in 2006.

The General Assembly resolution that created the Council specifically provides that members elected to the Council shall uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights? (res 60/251, 2006, para 9).

According to the ICJ, one of the persons executed, Michael Igweh was allegedly tortured by law enforcement authorities to extract his confession.

The Geneva-based organization, on several occasions, has called the Government of Indonesia's attention to its violations of Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which guarantees the right to a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent, and impartial tribunal established by law. Any reliance on confessions extracted by torture would be a gross violation of the fairness of the trials.

Because of the irreversible nature of the death penalty, trials in capital cases must scrupulously respect all international and regional standards protecting the right to a fair trial, Zarifi further said.

The ICJ opposes capital punishment without exception and emphasizes the impact of the executions on the families of those who were executed.

The 4 persons executed were on a list of 14 people set to be executed soon. The other individuals are: Merri Utami (Indonesia), Zulfiqar Ali (Pakistan), Gurdip Singh (India), Frederick Luttar (Zimbabwe), AgusHadi (Indonesia), Pujo Lestari (Indonesia), Eugene Ape (Nigeria), Okonkwo Nonso Kingsley (Nigeria), Ozias Sibanda (Nigeria) and Obinna Nwajagu (Nigeria).

The ICJ strongly urges the Government of Indonesia to stop any further executions, immediately impose a moratorium, and take steps towards the abolition of the death penalty.

In December 2014, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 69/189, affirming for the 5th time that the use of the death penalty undermines human dignity and calling for countries that still maintain capital punishment to establish a moratorium on its use with a view to its abolition.

Source: mizzima.com, July 30, 2016

⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; send a submission; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running!

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." - Oscar Wilde

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Texas: The inmates who refused to die quietly and had to be gassed out of their cells before execution

Former crime reporter Michelle Lyons, who witnessed nearly 300 executions in Texas, US, reveals the desperate acts of death row prisoners who refused to accept their fate After spending years or often decades locked up in a tiny cell for 23 hours a day, most Death Row inmates go willingly to their executions. However, some refuse to die quietly - with officers forced to gas them out of cells, strap up their heads and even give chase across prison grounds. Michelle Lyons, who has witnessed nearly 300 executions in Texas, US, exclusively tells Sun Online how certain inmates "fight like hell" in their last moments. On most occasions, Michelle watched from the witness area, with the killers already on the gurney - the stretcher where they'd be given a lethal injection. Seven prisoners once tried to escape from the Row in Huntsville - with one shoving magazines and newspapers under his clothes to help him roll over razor-wire fences. Others have had to b...

Idaho | Death row prisoners sue over state's new firing squad

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) – Days after Idaho made the switch to a firing squad for executions, two Idaho death row prisoners next in line to be put to death sued the state prison system, saying its director withheld information about how she settled on the specifics for carrying out the method. Attorneys for prisoners Thomas Creech and Gerald Pizzuto filed suit this week in state district court against Idaho Department of Correction Director Bree Derrick. In the filing, they called her approval of an updated standard operating procedure for the firing squad and lethal injection as a backup method “arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion and in excess of the statutory authority of the agency.”

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.

Florida executes Dennis Sochor

Man, 74, becomes oldest inmate executed in Florida in state’s 10th lethal injection this year Florida put to death one of its oldest prisoners in its history on Tuesday, a 74-year-old convicted murderer who was 1 of 3 older inmates scheduled for execution within the span of a month in the nation’s busiest death penalty state. Dennis Sochor was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. following a 3-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, the office of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said. He was convicted of killing a woman on Jan. 1, 1982, just hours after meeting her at a New Year’s Eve party.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog