India tries to save citizen from death row

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan, North Sumatra

The Indian government has taken diplomatic steps in a last ditch effort to save Indian national Ayodhya Prasad Chaubey from a death sentence for importing heroin.

India's Consul General K.J. Prancis said after a meeting of Ayodhya's lawyer Irham Buana Nasution that the Indian Embassy in Jakarta was intensifying its lobby through the Foreign Affairs Ministry to persuade President Megawati Soekarnoputri to review her decision to reject clemency for Ayodhya.

He added that both his government and Ayodhya had yet to receive the copy of the president's decision on her rejection of the clemency request.

Irham said he had submitted a request to the Supreme Court to review the court verdict against his client because the court had handed down a death sentence, despite the absence of any physical evidence.

"Up to now, the court has failed to present any physical evidence that my client possessed heroin," he said recently.

Ayodhya, 59, along with his two Thai partners, named as Saelow Praseart, 52 and Namsong Sirilak, 25, were sentenced to death in 1994 after they were found guilty of trying to smuggle 12.19 kilograms of heroin to Indonesia from Thailand.

Ayodhya, the two Thais and two Indonesian partners were sentenced to death by the Medan District Court in Sept. 8, 1994. The verdict was upheld by the High Court in Dec. 14, 1994 and by the Supreme Court in 1995.

Ayodhya has also appeal for a review the death penalty but the Supreme Court turned down it in 1997. The sentence has not been carried out for unclear reasons.

He submitted a letter to the president to beg for clemency but the president turned down it on Feb. 3 this year.

Prancis said that so far Ayodhya's lawyer and the Indian Embassy had yet to receive the copy of the decree. The execution cannot be conducted before the copy of decree is received by the lawyers.

Separately, Ayodhya is counting his days at the Tanjunggusta penitentiary in Medan saying that he has heard about the president's rejection of his clemency the decision that rejects his appeal.

"I am ready to be put to death should the government reject my appeal," he told the Post, while sitting in his cell.