INDONESIA EXECUTEs 3 NIGERIANS, OTHERS CONVICTED OF DRUG TRAFFICKING

3 Nigerians are among 10 people executed in Indonesia after midnight tonight

• The lawyer for Chan and Sukumuran has tweeted these emotional words. 

  
• 8 minutes ago

  Mary Jane Veloso’s family have been informed of her reported reprieve.

  

  
  
• 15 minutes ago

  It is unlikely that there will be immediate official verification of the executions, however the Jakarta Post quotes sources, some anonymous, which confirm that the executions of the eight men have been carried out: 

  An anonymous Cilacap police officer: “The executions went well, without any disruptions”

  
  

  
  

  “The executions were carried out at 12:30 a.m.,” Suhendro Putro, funeral director with the Javanese Christian Church (GKJ) in Cilacap 

  
  

  “We’ve carried out the executions,” said an Attorney General’s Office (AGO) official, talking to the press on condition of anonymity.

• 31 minutes ago

  The case of 30-year-old Veloso, who has two children, has ignited protests around the world.

  The woman who allegedly recruited her as a drugs mule by promising her a job as a domestic worker in Indonesia handed herself into police in the Philippines on Tuesday.

  Veloso’s lawyers claimed she was duped into carrying the heroin, which was found hidden in the lining of her suitcase as she arrived in Indonesia.
• 38 minutes ago

  Further reports that Filipino Mary Jane will be spared execution tonight. Indonesia TV is reporting that the other eight convicts have been executed.The Independent cannot immediately verify this. 
• 41 minutes ago

  Indonesian television is reporting that the execution of Mary Jane Veloso has been delayed. The Independent has not been able to verify this. 
• an hour ago

  

  Reports from Cilacap Port  
• an hour ago

  Sky News Australia reports – A bell has just been rung at St Ignatius Church in Richmond as it is now 3am AEST
• an hour ago

  Indonesian television reports that all nine prisoners have been moved to the execution site.
• an hour ago

  
• an hour ago

  Some reports emerging that Indonesian media has said prisoners are currently being moved from their cells to the execution site, however this has not been officially confirmed.
• 2 hours ago

  Amnesty International has posted the following details of how the executions will take place:

  “They are due to be shot by human beings. A group of special police officers will tie each prisoner to a post in dark nightfall, just before midnight. A colleague will shine a torch onto the prisoner’s heart. Another group of police officers will line up and fire at the target.
  “Only some of the officers will have live ammunition, others will fire blanks so that they don’t have to face the moral consequence of guilt and blame, of knowing who fired the fatal shots”
• 2 hours ago

  

  Vigils, seen here in Sydney, continue around the world tonight but they are likely to be in vain.
• 2 hours ago

  There is now less than one hour to go until the executions are due to begin
• 2 hours ago

  

  Hope faded for the nine people due to be executed within hours as Indonesia defies international pressure and relatives’ desperate pleas to save them.

  The video below includes an interview from 2014 in which the two Australians talk about their impending move to Nusakambangan Island, where they will be executed tonight.

Starting at midnight, the prisoners will be taken from their cells on Nusakambangan Island one by one, marched into the forest, blindfolded and shot dead by a 12-man firing squad.

Only three of the guns aimed at their hearts will be carrying live ammunition and if that volley does not kill them, a commander will shoot them point-blank in the head.

These are the names of those sentenced to death and their crimes.

Read more: How convicts spent their last day
Relatives’ emotional appeals to stop executions
Convict to refuse blindfold when he is shot

Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, Australia

Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran appear at court in 2006 The pair were convicted in 2006 as part of the “Bali Nine” drug smuggling gang who were arrested on the island for trying to smuggle 8kg of heroin to Australia.

Their six Australian co-conspirators were jailed for between 18 years and life in Indonesia but Sukumaran, then 23, and Chan, 21, were given harsher sentences as the alleged ringleaders.

After being monitored by Indonesian police, who were handed information from the Australian Federal Police, all nine were arrested as the smuggling operation started.

Chan was removed from a plane bound for Australia at Bali’s airport, and was believed to be the person who would collect the heroin in Australia.

Bali Nine pair face execution

• 

Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, Sukumaran, Si Yi Chen and Matthew Norman were arrested in Kuta, Bali, in possession of heroin.

The rest were detained on another plane, where they were found with heroin strapped to their bodies.

Several appeals failed over their 10 years’ imprisonment in Indonesia, despite lawyers’ efforts to highlight the pair’s contribution to prison life and education, as well as Chan’s conversion to Christianity.

Judges ruled that President Joko Widodo was the only person who could grant them clemency, which he refused.

Rodrigo Gularte, Brazil

Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte with seized six kilograms of cocaine after his arrest in 2004The 42-year-old was sentenced to death in 2005 for smuggling 6kg of cocaine inside surfboards.

He has since been diagnosed with acute paranoid schizophrenia but his lawyers’ argument that he should have been taken off Nusakambangan for a fuller mental exam were dismissed.

Mr Gularte’s execution is a violation of Indonesian and international law, according to his legal team, but his appeal for clemency was rejected by the President in January.

The Indonesian penal code states that a person is “not punishable” or liable if they commit a crime by reason of the “sickly disorder of his mental capacities”, while the UN Commission on Human Rights urges all states “not to impose (the death penalty) on a person suffering from any form of mental disorder; not to execute any such person”.

Mary Jane Veloso, Philippines

Mary Jane Veloso taking part in a charity event in prison The case of 30-year-old Veloso, who has two children, has ignited protests around the world.

She was arrested with 2.6 kg of heroin at Adisucipto International airport in Yogyakarta in April 2010 and sentenced to death in October that year. She has since lost several appeals.

The woman who allegedly recruited her as a drugs mule by promising her a job as a domestic worker in Indonesia handed herself into police in the Philippines on Tuesday but it was not enough to stop her execution.

Maria Kristina Sergio was reportedly seeking protection after receiving death threats via her social media accounts and mobile phone.

Veloso’s lawyers claimed she was duped into carrying the heroin, which was found hidden in the lining of her suitcase as she arrived in Indonesia.
“I’d say it’s a changing alibi,“ Indonesia’s attorney-general, H.M. Prasetyo, told reporters.

“If we’re not firm, it means we’re weak in the war against drugs.”

Her two sons and her mother visited her in prison on Tuesday and her sister said she told the children she would die with a “pure heart” and go to heaven.

Martin Anderson, Nigeria/Ghana

Martin Anderson at judicial review hearing in the South Jakarta court in March 2015Now 50, he was found to be in possession of 50g of heroin at his home in North Jakarta in 2003.

His death sentence was upheld by Indonesia’s Supreme Court and a case review was dismissed by judges as he had already asked the President for clemency, effectively admitting guilt.

Conflicting reports have said he a national Nigeria and Ghana. Neither could be confirmed.

Raheem Agbaje Salami, Nigeria

Raheem Agbaje Salami and Silvester Obiekwe Nwolise The 42-year-old, who holds a Spanish passport, was arrested at Juanda International Airport in Surabaya, East Java, in 1998 after attempting to smuggle in 5.2 kg of heroin.

He is also known under the name Jamiu Owolabi Abashin.

Salami’s original life sentence in 1999 was reduced to 20 years by the High Court after an appeal.

But state prosecutors challenged the lowered sentence at the Supreme Court, which in 2006 sentenced him to death. Appeals and a request for clemency failed.

Sylvester Obiekwe Nwolise, Nigeria

After being found guilty of trafficking 1.18kg of heroin into Sukarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta in 2003 and sentenced to death, Indonesia’s narcotics agency has since accused the 27-year-old of dealing drugs in prison.

In 2012 he was found to have dealt on Nusakambangan Island and then again a year later at a separate jail on the same complex, resulting in him being put in isolation.

Okwudili Oyatanze, Nigeria

Crosses for condemned drug convicts (from L-R) Australians Andrew Chan (L) and Myuran Sukumaran (C), and Nigerian Okwudili Oyatanze Oyatanze, 45, was sentenced to death for trafficking 1.15kg of heroin from Pakistan through Sukarno-Hatta airport in 2001.

A district court and the Supreme Court supported capital punishment in his case and an application for a judicial review was dismissed.

President Jokowi rejected his appeal for clemency after he admitted the crime in February this year.

Zainal Abidin bin Mgs Mahmud Badarudin, Indonesia

Zainal, 50, was arrested at his home in Palembang, South Sumatra, for the possession of 58.7kg of cannabis in 2000.

Despite being handed a 15 year prison term during his first sentencing, he was given the death penalty following an appeal by prosecutors, which was later upheld by the Supreme Court.

President Jokowi rejected his appeal for clemency and a judicial review also failed.

Raheem Agbaje Salami, Sylvester Obiekwe Nwolise and Okwudili Oyatanze, along with Australians Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, Filipina Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso, Frenchman Serge Areski Atlaoui, Ghanaian Martin Anderson, Indonesian Zainal Abidin bin Mgs Mahmud Badarudin and Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte were all found guilty of drug trafficking.

The men are expected to be led from their isolated cells in Death Island through a wildly dense tropical forest to a place called Nirbaya – or more appropriately known as Death Valley.

The condemned pair will be given white clothing to wear, which symbolises the afterlife, before
beginning their fatal trek and are given the option to be blindfolded with a piece of fabric before facing the firing squad who will be lined up anywhere from five to 10 metres in front of them.

The confronting decisions continue for the death row inmates with the opportunity to choose whether to stand, sit or kneel before a cross is placed over their hearts acting as a target for the 12 riflemen – of which nine will have blanks and only three will have live rounds.

Each prisoner is offered 3 minutes to calm down but if necessary their hands or feet will be tied to a 3m high pole or worse still – a wooden execution chair.

The 12 marksmen are then ordered to fire at them. And after the shooting, if doctors confirm that there are still signs of life in them, the commander will shoot the inmates in the head.