Govt told to set deadline for executions

Abdul Khalik and Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Legal experts urged the government on Sunday to impose a deadline for the execution of convicts sentenced to death to avoid double punishment.

Meanwhile, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who is almost certain to be named president on Oct. 5, said Indonesia's legal system should maintain capital punishment in dealing with extraordinary crimes, saying such punishment would provide justice.

Noted lawyer and human rights activist Luhut M. Pangaribuan said authorities should give priority to appeals filed by convicts sentenced to death and execute them within a year of sentencing, if they have exhausted all other legal avenues available.

"Aside from controversy over the existence of capital punishment itself, it should be a main priority for the judiciary to carry out the death sentence in less than a year after the verdict. The authorities can do that if they want to," said Luhut.

Two Thai nationals -- Namsong Sirilak, 32, and Saelow Prasert, 62 -- were executed in the early hours of Friday, more than eight years after they were sentenced to death in 1996 for drug trafficking.

Sirilak and Prasert, along with Indian national, Ayodhya Prasadh Chaubey, were arrested in 1994, for carrying 12 kilograms of heroin. Chaubey was executed in August this year.

The long delay in their execution has raised concerns that the three were serving two sentences -- death and imprisonment.

Over 20 other convicts are still on death row. Three of them have been imprisoned for 12 years while two others have been in prison since 1993 and 1994 respectively. The authorities have given no clues as to when they would be executed.

According to existing laws, convicts on death row may appeal to a higher court, and ask for sentence review from the Supreme Court. If the courts reject their pleas, they can request a presidential clemency twice.

Death-row convicts whose pleas for clemency have been rejected are Samuel Iwuchekwu Okoye, 34, Hansen Anthony Nwaolisa, 37, both from Nigeria, Indra Bahadur Tamang, 24, from Nepal, Muhammad Abdul Hafez, 36, from Pakistan and Namaona Denis, 39, from Malawi.

Three other drug traffickers are also facing execution after their pleas for clemency were turned down last year. They are all Indonesian -- Deni Setia Maharwan, Meirika Franola and Rani Andriani.

Luhut criticized the judicial authorities for their tardiness in deciding the fate of convicts on death row, saying that in most cases authorities seemed to ignore pleas for clemency.

Rudy Satrio, a criminal law expert from the School of Law at the University of Indonesia, acknowledged loopholes in the country's legal system concerning the maximum period death-row convicts had to wait for their execution.

"We have no law regulating when convicts must be executed. That's why we have proposed in the draft bill on legal procedures that the state change capital punishment to life if a convict is not executed within 10 years," said Rudy.

He said if the bill was approved by the House next year practically no more executions were expected as long as the convict showed a willingness to change his or her attitude.

Meanwhile, Susilo said over the weekend that cases that carry capital punishment must be done in a fair, transparent and accountable manner.

"In the case of certain crimes that hurt people's sense of justice, I think capital punishment is one among numerous sentences that should be considered by judges. In many countries, such a punishment works well as a deterrent," he said.