One more joins Tangerang death row for drugs

Multa Fidrus, Tangerang

The Tangerang District Court sent another drug dealer to death row on Monday, putting at 26 number of those now awaiting execution since January 2000 in the municipality.

None have been executed, pending appeals and other legal moves.

The court found Adam Wilson, 31, a citizen apparently of both Benin and Malawi, guilty of having a role in smuggling one kilogram of heroin from Thailand into the country via his Indonesian girlfriend in early 2002.

Presiding judge Maha Nikmah also ordered Wilson to pay a Rp 150 million (US$16,667) fine.

The verdict was equal to the demand sought by prosecutor Hutagaol.

Wilson's lawyer Dedi Waluyo said they would appeal.

"The defendant has been proven guilty of all charges and there are no mitigating factors that can reduce the sentence," Maha Nikmah announced in court.

The judge explained that the defendant had ignored the Indonesian government's antidrug campaign, endangered the country's young generation, given false testimony and showed no remorse during the trial.

The prosecutor charged the defendant with violating Law No. 22/1997 on Drugs, Article 55 of the Criminal Code on persuading others to commit crimes and Law No. 9/1992 on Immigration.

Hutagaol said the defendant illegally entered the country in 1999 via Entekong, an immigration post in West Kalimantan where it borders eastern Malaysia, without valid travel documents.

Two years later, he built a relationship with Edith Yunita Sianturi. In February 2002, Wilson asked Sianturi to go to Thailand and take along with her US$4,500 in cash to be submitted to a man called Brother in Bangkok.

She first refused but then agreed after Wilson threatened to break up with. Sianturi managed to do what she had been asked but when she was about to fly back home a week later, Brother asked her to also take a leather bag to be given to Wilson.

Upon her arrival at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, the customs and excise officers found that the bag was full of heroine.

Sianturi was sentenced to death in 2002, but the police suspected that she had not acted alone and eventually arrested Wilson as her cohort.

The police continued to track down the defendant and arrested him after they staged a drug transaction trap in a house in Bekasi last year.

"How can the court sentence me to death? There is no evidence on me. It's not fair. There's no justice," Wilson said after the verdict was read.