Press kept from Thai drug convicts

MEDAN, North Sumatra: The press is being prevented from covering the daily activities of two Thai citizens awaiting execution after President Megawati Soekarnoputri refused them clemency.

An official letter from the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights posed at Tanjung Gusta Prison here restricts coverage as the two Thais await execution.

Saelow Praset, 62, and Namsong Sirilak, 32, has been on death row since being convicted in 1994 of attempting to smuggle into the country 12 kilograms of heroin. Another man convicted in that case, an Indian citizen, was recently executed.

Several prison employees who asked not to be identified confirmed the restrictions. They said both the print and electronic media were barred from covering the two convicts' activities without official permission from the local prosecutor's office.

Sabli Zuardin, chief of the local office of the justice and human rights ministry, said the restrictions were issued for the two convicts' safety ahead of their execution.

He declined to say whether a date had been set for the two to face the firing squad.

A spokesman for the Attorney General's Office, Kemas Yahya, said recently the executions would take place within 30 days after the Attorney General's Office received a copy of the President's July 9 rejection of the convicts' clemency pleas. --JP