Trafficker gets death sentence commuted
Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post/Tangerang
The West Java High Court has heard the appeal for Nigerian drug convict Stephen Rasheed Akinyemi, 34, and decided to reduce his sentence from the death penalty to a 20-year imprisonment.
"We received a notice from the High Court on Monday, stating that the death penalty for the defendant had been lowered to a 20-year imprisonment," Juli Agus, Tangerang District Court clerk told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
The reduction of the sentence is the first ever in a drug case handled in Tangerang, which has convicted many drug traffickers, mostly foreigners, who tried to smuggle drugs through Soekarno- Hatta International Airport, and sentenced them to death row.
The court officials on Wednesday refused to reveal the full content of the ruling, with all the reasons behind the reduction, until the prosecutors and the convict received copies.
Chief of the special crimes unit at the Tangerang Prosecutor's Office, Anwarudin, claimed that he had yet to receive the copy of the ruling.
Meanwhile, Eben Silalahi, another prosecutor who was working on Akinyemi's case, said that he would appeal to the Supreme Court.
Silalahi charged Akinyemi with violating Article 82 of the Law No.22/1997 on psychotropic substances and sought life imprisonment for the defendant. The Tangerang District Court, however, handed down the death sentence for Akinyemi on March 5.
"As soon as we receive a copy of the verdict, we will file an appeal to the Supreme Court," he said. He added that he could have accepted the verdict if the High Court had lowered the capital punishment to life imprisonment as he had proposed earlier.
Akinyemi, resident of Benin City, Nigeria, was one of 26 drug convicts on death row in Tangerang prison.
During his stay in Indonesia, Akinyemi married an Indonesian woman. The couple has three children.
He was arrested at the airport before flying to Surabaya on July 1 last year. An airport security officer in charge at the terminal checkpoint searched Akinyemi who set the alarm off when he passed through the check gate.
The officers found two plastic bags strapped to his groin.
A test later confirmed that each plastic bag contained 200 grams of heroin.
Tangerang prosecutors had also sought the death sentence for Nigerian-born Sylvester Obiekwe Nwolise, 39, who is a Kenyan national, for smuggling 1.2 kilograms of heroin into the country from Pakistan in December last year.
Another Nigerian, Daniel Enemuo, alias Diarrassouba Mamadou, 28, is currently standing trial at the Tangerang court for smuggling 1.15 kilograms heroin from Pakistan in January.