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JAKARTA. President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo ordered on Thursday the execution of five death-row drug convicts this month, a move to uphold court rulings.
Jokowi summoned Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Tedjo Edhy Purdijatno to a meeting to discuss the matter on Thursday.
Tedjo said it was not a unilateral decision by Jokowi, merely the President's instruction to implement the convicts’ sentences.
"The President has ordered the relevant authorities to carry out the court verdicts. Those [sentences] which have legally binding rulings should be implemented," Tedjo said.
The government is now waiting for the newly inaugurated attorney general, HM Prasetyo, to complete the paperwork required for the death sentence on the five convicts to be carried out.
Prasetyo recently announced that 20 other death-row inmates, the majority of whom are drug convicts, would face the firing squad in 2015.
Former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's administration had been repeatedly criticized for its lenience toward drug trafficking. In February, for example, it granted parole to Schapelle Corby, a convicted Australian drug trafficker who had been sentenced to 20 years for attempting to smuggle 4.2 grams of marijuana through Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport.
Human rights watch dog Imparsial, however, has just recently reaffirmed its stance against the death penalty.
The most recent executions in Indonesia took place in 2013, when the Attorney General’s Office took the lives of drug smuggler Adam Wilson in March, three convicted murderers in Cilacap prison in May and a Pakistani drug smuggler in November.
Indonesia has 11 laws that carry the death sentence, including the Criminal Code, Law No. 12/1951 on firearm ownership, Law No. 11/PNPS 1963 on subversive activities, Law No. 5/1997 on drugs, Law No. 31/1999 on corruption eradication, Law No. 26/2000 on human rights courts, Law No. 23/2002 on children’s protection and Law No. 15/2003 on terrorism. (Ina Parlina)
