Govt denies delaying executions
Govt denies delaying executions
JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Justice Oetojo Oesman denied
allegations yesterday that it was inhumane for the government to
leave inmates on death row in jail for more than twenty years
before being executed.
Oetojo said that the government does not postpone executions
but that delays are often caused by the long clemency application
process as well as the health of those on death row.
He said that in some cases postponed executions work in the
favor of a prisoner, such as when their requests for clemency are
granted in the meantime.
"Some prisoners facing the death penalty were finally given
clemency and freed after being in jail for years," Oetojo said,
obviously referring to two political prisoners who last month
were released after serving 30 years in prison.
The two were Soebandrio, a former foreign minister, and Omar
Dhani, a former Air Force chief, both of whom were convicted of
supporting the communist abortive coup in 1965.
"We never intend to delay cases dealing with capital
punishment. The process takes time," the minister said moments
after attending a parliamentary hearing with members of
Commission III of the House of Representatives.
In yesterday's hearing, both the minister and legislators
agreed that they would start discussing a draft on the country's
correctional institutions next month.
Oetojo said that he first has to go to Beijing to attend an
international conference on corruption and other social ills in
developed and developing nations.
The execution issue surfaced last month when Oetojo said that
a number of prisoners would soon be executed.
Although he made no reference to any particular prisoner, it
is believed that the two are Bungkus and Marsudi, former members
of the elite presidential guard implicated in the kidnapping and
killing of the army generals that followed the abortive coup of
1965. Both have been in jail for more than 20 years.
His remarks prompted members of the National Commission on
Human Rights and local as well as international non-governmental
organizations to comment that their incarceration was against
humanitarian principles.
When asked whether there was a possibility for Indonesia to
adopt the so called "conditional release" of political prisoners
with a record of good conduct, as applied in China, Oetojo said
that his ministry would first study the system and discuss it
with the legislators in next month's hearing.
He added, however, that the system is not common in any
criminal code and that adopting it could weaken the country's
criminal laws.(03)