Drugs dealers on death row make the best of their time
Drugs dealers on death row make the best of their time
Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post, Tangerang
Twenty-three-year-old Thai national Nothanam M. Saichon never
expected to find herself counting off her final days on death row
in a prison in Indonesia.
After being sentenced to death for attempting to smuggle one
kilogram of heroin into the country through Soekarno-Hatta
International Airport in August 2001, Saichon is now making the
best of her time behind bars at the Tangerang Penitentiary for
Women.
"I am awaiting the results of my case review at the Supreme
Court. If it is not good news, then I will ask for a presidential
pardon. If the President rejects my clemency request ... I will
leave it all to God," she told The Jakarta Post.
Saichon speaks fluent Indonesian, a skill she picked up from
her fellow inmates and guards.
Saichon is one of three Thai women now awaiting a final say on
their death penalties. All three women are also alone, receiving
no visits from family or friends since being jailed.
"We have only received visits from Thai Embassy staff members,
but they don't come any more," she said.
Saichon, Bunyong Khaosa Ard and Parkhan are not as lucky as
the four Indonesian women on death row for the same crime --
Meirika Franola, Rani Maharani, Edith Yunita Sianturi and Merry
Utami, who can least take some comfort from their family.
The loneliness gives Saichon time to think and to pick up new
skills that could be useful if she ever gets out of prison.
"I have learned how to cook many Indonesian dishes, sew and
embroider," she said.
Saichon was working as a masseuse in Bangkok, which allowed
her to make enough money to pay the hospital bills of her sick
father.
After three months at a massage parlor, one of her co-workers
offered Saichon US$500 to fly to Jakarta and deliver something.
Before leaving Bangkok, her co-worker took her to a hotel and
asked her to wear special underwear, Saichon recalled.
"When I arrived at the airport (in Jakarta), the customs and
excise officers found drugs hidden in the panties I was wearing,"
she said.
Since the passage of the narcotics and psychotropic substances
law in 1998, the Tangerang District Court has taken advantage of
the regulation that allows for the death penalty for drug
traffickers arrested at the Soekarno-Hatta airport, which is
under the court's jurisdiction.
Since January 2000, the court has handed down death sentences
to 23 people, mostly foreigners. At least five of these sentences
have been commuted to life in prison by higher courts.
Mohamad Abdul Hafeez, a Pakistani sentenced to death for
attempting to smuggle 995 grams of heroin into Indonesia from
Karachi in May 2001, said his death sentence was too harsh.
He has done what he can from his cell at the Tangerang Youth
Penitentiary to have his sentence reduced, so that maybe one day
he will be able to see his home and family again.
"When I left Karachi, my wife was several months pregnant. We
have lost contact ever since. She doesn't know that I am here in
this jail, facing a death sentence ... I haven't ever seen what
my child looks like," he said.