Indonesia executes 4 people convicted of drug crimes

Police officers stand guard as a convoy of ambulances carrying the bodies of drug traffickers drive past by at Wijaya Pura port upon arrival from the prison island of Nusakambangan in Cilacap, Central Java, Indonesia on Friday, July 29, 2016. (AP / Agus Fitrah)

CILACAP, Indonesia - Indonesia executed four people convicted of drug crimes on Friday despite international protests and said it would decide later when as many as 10 others are put to death.

One Indonesian and three Nigerians were executed by firing squad not long after midnight local time as torrential rains hit the Nusa Kambangan prison island where the death row inmates were held.

The government had said earlier in the week that 14 people on death row, mostly foreigners, would be executed for drug crimes.

Those executed were Indonesian Freddy Budiman and Nigerians Seck Osmane, Michael Titus and Humphrey Jefferson.

Relatives, rights groups and foreign governments had urged Indonesia to spare all 14 lives but it was unclear whether that had any influence on the decision to not carry out all the executions at once. Lawyers and rights groups had raised serious doubts about the legitimacy of the conviction of Jefferson, who had been in prison for more than a decade, as well as the convictions of an Indonesian woman Merri Utami and a Pakistani man Zulfikar Ali.

Ricky Gunawan, a lawyer from Community Legal Aid Institute who represented Jefferson and Utami, said there had been no explanation from officials at Nusa Kambangan about the decision to execute only some of the prisoners. But he said it was telling that Africans were eight of the 10 foreigners on the execution list and three of the four killed.

"They felt they were targeted by the government of Indonesia only because they are Nigerians, only because they are Africans, and their governments did not do anything" to help them, he said. "They felt they became an easy target to execute."

It was the third set of executions under President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo who was elected in 2014 and campaigned on promises to improve human rights in Indonesia.

Last year, Jokowi's government executed 14 people convicted of drug crimes, mostly foreigners, sparking a huge outcry abroad, and particularly in Australia, which had two citizens among those condemned.

The latest executions did not attract the same level of media attention abroad but the European Union, UN Human Rights Office, Australian government and others continued to speak out against Indonesia's use of the death penalty.

Attorney-General Muhammad Prasetyo told a news conference on Friday that the severity of the drug crimes and exhaustion of all appeals was a consideration in the execution of the four men. A decision about other executions would be announced at a later time, he said. The comments suggest authorities decided at the last minute that the legal grounds for execution in the other cases were not entirely satisfied.

"I can say that the four executed inmates had important roles either as kingpin, supplier, distributor, providers, and producer as well as importer and even acted as exporters of the drugs," Prasetyo said. "They all have passed through all legal stages, including extraordinary appeals."

The bodies of Osmane and Titus will be flown to their home country and Jefferson will be buried in Indonesia.

A convoy of 17 ambulances, most carrying coffins, had arrived Thursday morning at the port town nearest Nusa Kambangan. Officials began tightening security at the prison several days ago, with more than 1,000 police sent to Cilacap, the port town, and the prisoners moved into isolation cells.

Gunawan said he not been able to speak with Utami since the government announced the four executions and nor had her appointed spiritual adviser, a Catholic priest.

He said the process was "tantamount to torture."

"She has been in an isolation cell for three days and on the last day she had a very sad farewell with her family members," he said. "Then apparently she is not executed."

The government of Jokowi's predecessor did not carry out executions between 2009 and 2012, but resumed them in 2013.

Worldwide, China is believed to be the country with the highest number of executions but it does not release figures. Amnesty International estimates several thousand people are executed in China each year.

Of the more than 1,600 publicly announced executions last year, Amnesty says nearly 90 per cent of them were in three countries: Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran.

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Niniek Karmini and Ali Kotarumalos contributed.