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Japan | Hakamada found religion, but then felt under attack by ‘the devil’

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Editor's note: This is the last in a four-part series on letters that Iwao Hakamada wrote while on death row. About a decade after cursing God, Iwao Hakamada was baptized Catholic at the Tokyo Detention House on Dec. 24, 1984. “Since I have been given the Christian name Paul, I am keenly feeling that I should be aware of the greatness of Paul.” (June 1985)

Indonesia | Medan Court Sentences Three Drug Traffickers to Death

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Medan. The Medan District Court on Wednesday found three defendants, including a woman dubbed the "drug queen" by local media, guilty of trafficking and sentenced them to death.

Hanisah, also known as Nisa Binti Abdullah, her husband Al Riza, and co-defendant Maimun were convicted of trafficking at least 52 kilograms of methamphetamine and 129 kilograms of ecstasy pills.

Three co-defendants, Narul, Hamzah, and Mustafa, were sentenced to life imprisonment.

Presiding Judge Abdul Hadi Nasution said the court found no mitigating factors to consider leniency for the six defendants.

Indonesia has executed 18 people, mostly for drug offenses, since President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo took office in 2014, despite international criticism and appeals for mercy.

The last batch of executions took place in July 2016, when four drug convicts were killed by a firing squad on Nusakambangan Island, off the coast of Java. Among those executed were three Nigerians and an Indonesian. There have been no executions since.

Ten other drug convicts, including nationals from India, Nigeria, Pakistan and Zimbabwe were spared at the last minute for reasons that were not explained.

Jokowi has defended the use of capital punishment as a deterrent against drug trafficking and abuse, saying the country was facing a “national emergency.”

He has repeatedly rejected clemency pleas from drug convicts and said that he would not compromise on the issue.

“I have said it before, we must be firm. Especially for the foreign drug dealers who resist, just shoot them right away. Don’t give them any mercy,” Jokowi had said in 2017.

Human rights activists and legal experts have questioned the effectiveness and fairness of Indonesia’s anti-drug policy and called for a moratorium on executions.

Under Indonesia’s new criminal code passed in 2022, judges can impose death sentences with a probationary period of 10 years, after which the sentence can be reduced to life imprisonment.

Source: Jakarta Globe, Staff, May 9, 2024

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

— Oscar Wilde



Location: Medan, Medan City, North Sumatra, Indonesia
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