Chaubey put into solitary

Ayodhya Prasadh Chaubey, an Indian national sentenced to death for smuggling drugs, has been isolated in a special cell since last week at Tanjung Gusta Penitentiary in Medan, North Sumatra, a lawyer said on Monday.

According to prison regulations, death row convicts who are placed in isolation are nearing their execution date, according to Irham Buana Nasution, Chaubey's lawyer from the Legal Aid Institute (LBH) in Medan.

Separately, the spokesman of the North Sumatra Prosecutor's Office, J. A. Ketaren, confirmed that Chaubey would be executed soon. He said police and the prosecutor's office had agreed on the date and place of the execution, but the information was confidential.

Chaubey was arrested in 1994 in Medan, North Sumatra, when trying to smuggle 12 kilograms of heroin into the country. The local district court sentenced him to death one year later.

Subsequently, he appealed to higher courts but both the Medan High Court and the Supreme Court rejected his appeals. President Megawati Soekarnoputri also turned down his plea for clemency.

The Indian government has expressed objection to the planned execution of Chaubey, saying the death row convict is too old to face a firing squad.

There are many death-row drug convicts but only one drug offender has been executed in the last 10 years when Malaysian Chan Ting Tong, alias Steven Chong, was shot by a 12-man firing squad.

Human rights campaigners have pushed for an end to the death penalty, which they say has proven ineffective in deterring drug dealers and is against the basic human right to live. -- JP