AG Prasetyo Conveys Condolences for ‘Unpleasant’ Executions
Jakarta. After weeks spent at times gleefully leading the charge for Indonesia to execute several drug traffickers, Attorney General H.M. Prasetyo said on Wednesday that the deaths of eight people in the early hours of this morning was “not something to be happy about.”
Prasetyo gave his condolences to the family’s of the eight victims on Wednesday morning in Cilcacap, Central Java.
“This execution is definitely not something to be happy about, this is an unpleasant matter,” Prasetyo said. “However, it is drugs trafficking we are fighting, not a certain country or its people.”
Prasetyo said the execution on Nusakambangan prison island took place at 12:35 a.m. and all eight convicts were pronounced dead within 30 minutes.
All executions happened simultaneously and the convicts died of the first shot directed to their heart, not because of a second shot below the ear, he said.
Under Indonesian law a single shot to the head is adminstered by a police officer in the event that the victim survives the initial volley to chest.
Prasetyo also reiterated that the execution of Filipina Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso was only delayed and not canceled because her testimony was still needed to investigate the human trafficking allegation against her recruiter.
“We have transfered Mary Jane back to Wirogunan prison [in Yogyakarta] because Nusamkambangan does not have facilities for female inmates,” he said.
“We hope Mary Jane can help to unveil the human trafficking case,” he added.
Veloso was saved from the firing squad following a report that a woman who recruited her had surrendered herself to Philippine authorities.
Prasetyo dismissed Australia’s and Brazil’s threat to recall their respective ambassadors from Indonesia claiming that the the recall was usually only temporary.
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Source: The Jakarta Globe