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.