Two brothers to be executed for murder

Two brothers to be executed for murder

Agence France Presse, Jakarta

Indonesian authorities will soon execute two brothers on death row for a premeditated triple murder during a robbery in the island of Sumatra in 2002, a prosecutor said on Thursday.

"We have been notified of a letter issued by the minister of laws and human rights that gives the approval in principle for the executions to take place in Jakarta," Antasari Azhar, chief prosecutor of West Sumatra province, told AFP.

Sadawa Hia, 23, and Taroni Hia, 26, were sentenced to death in March 2002 for the murder of three members of a family in the West Sumatran town of Maninjau in December 2001.

The executions will bring to eight the number of death sentences carried out in the past 12-months in Indonesia, which ignored complaints from rights groups last August and reintroduced capital punishment after a three-year pause.

Azhar said he would fly to Jakarta on Friday to take the letter and prepare the executions. He declined to say when and where the sentence would be carried out.

The two men, who had a plea for clemency rejected by then president Megawati Sukarnoputri in July 2004, have been detained at Jakarta's Cipinang maximum security prison.

In the past year, Indonesia has executed several drug traffickers and individuals convicted of other serious crimes.

In May, a former ship's captain was shot dead in Jambi province for having hacked to death his 16-year-old girlfriend in 1997 after he found she was cheating on him. He went on to kill her brother, mother and niece.

In April, a woman who killed and mutilated three other women in East Java province between 1992 and 1996 was also executed in East Java.

An Indian and two Thai nationals sentenced to death for drug smuggling were executed by firing squad last year.