Drug dealer executed amid protests
Apriadi Gunawan and A. Junaidi, Medan/Jakarta
Ignoring appeals from local and international institutions, Indonesia executed an elderly Indian national on Thursday, almost 10 years after he was sentenced to death for smuggling 12 kilograms of heroin into the country.
A firing squad of 12 policemen from the elite Mobile Brigade executed Ayodhya Prasadh Chaubey, 67, at 2:30 a.m. The execution, which took place in a field in Medan Polonia district in North Sumatra, was attended by officials from the police and the prosecutor's office, as well as ulemas.
Wearing a sarong, Chaubey, who was arrested in 1994 along with two Thai men -- also sentenced to death -- was shot from a distance of 10 meters.
"He was shot in the heart. A team of doctors declared him dead 10 minutes after the execution," Attorney General's Office spokesman Kemas Yahya, who attended the execution, said in Medan.
Chaubey's execution was the first carried out in the country in three years. In 2001, the state executed two people who had been convicted of multiple murders 12 years earlier. Theirs were the first executions in six years.
The execution of Chaubey, who was buried in a Muslim cemetery in Medan about three hours after being declared dead, was carried out despite appeals by the Indian government, Amnesty International and the European Union to spare his life.
In a declaration issued on Wednesday, the EU expressed its opposition to the death penalty "in all circumstances", labeling it "a cruel and inhuman form of punishment".
Amnesty International urged Indonesia to spare Chaubey and others sentenced to death, saying the death penalty was a violation of the right to life and questioning whether Chaubey and others on death row had received fair trials.
The Indian Embassy in Jakarta last month sent a letter to the Attorney General's Office asking it to spare Chaubey's life.
However, the Indian Embassy later said in a statement that it would not comment on the legal aspects of the case, but that it had requested that Chaubey's conviction be reconsidered.
India's Consulate General in Medan said on Thursday the Indian Embassy respected any legal decision made by the Indonesian judiciary.
"We do not want to intervene in any legal procedures that have led to Chaubey's death sentence and its execution," an official was quoted by Antara as saying in Medan.
Chaubey's lawyer Irham Buana Nasution said the execution should not have been carried out because during Chaubey's trial the 12 kilograms of heroin were never presented to the court as evidence.
"The execution should have been postponed since Chaubey's demand to see the evidence had never been fulfilled. It was strange that the evidence never showed up in court," Irham told The Jakarta Post.
He said prosecutors claimed the evidence was kept in storage at Bank Indonesia's North Sumatra office, but the bank had denied this.
The head of the North Sumatra Prosecutor's Office, Sudibyo, said: "We would not fulfill his demand because he also asked the evidence be witnessed by representatives from the Indian government and the United Nations."
The execution was carried out after Chaubey's appeal for clemency was rejected by President Megawati Soekarnoputri.
Antidrug activists have pressured the government to punish drug dealers with death in effort to fight the rising incidence of drug abuse in the country, especially among the young.
Chaubey was one of more than two dozen people on death row in Indonesia for drug offenses. Most of these people are foreigners.
Three Indonesians -- including two women -- sentenced to death on drug charges have had their final appeals rejected.
Amnesty International has said that at least 66 people are facing capital punishment in Indonesia.