Two foreigners face death over heroin
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Prosecutors requested separate courts on Monday to hand down death sentences for Senegalese and Sierra Leone suspects charged with heroin trafficking.
Seck Osmane, a 30-year old Senegalese national, was found in possession of 25 packages of heroin weighing 2.4 kilograms at his house in South Jakarta, prosecutor Suntoro was quoted by Antara as saying.
He said police officers confiscated the heroin as evidence in an Oct. 20, 2003, raid at the house on Jl. Lebak Bulus II, Cilandak.
Suntoro told the South Jakarta District Court that Osmane sold the illegal drug in Indonesia.
"He came to Indonesia and acted in a manner that would destroy the future of the nation, by smuggling a large quantity of heroin for sale ... and should be sentenced to death," he said.
The court adjourned the trial until next Monday to hear the defense's plea.
Separately in Bali, prosecutor Nunung Sugiarto asked the Denpasar District Court to sentence Emmanuel O. Lhejirika, 31, of Sierra Leone, to death for heroin trafficking.
The defendant was guilty of smuggling 461.7 grams of heroin inside his stomach, she said as quoted by Antara.
Lhejirika was caught upon his arrival on Jan. 14 at Ngurah Rai International Airport via Pakistan, Hong Kong and Malaysia.
Accompanied by his lawyer Dodik Firdaus, the defendant cried as the prosecutor read out the charges against him.
Presiding judge I Nyoman Karmam adjourned the trial until June 29 to hear the defense's plea.
A total of 30 people, most of them foreigners, are on death row in Indonesia for drug trafficking. None have been executed pending lengthy appellate processes.
National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said on Sunday the police had firing squads on standby for when prosecutors issued an order to carry out the sentence.
National Narcotics Coordinating Agency head Togar Sianipar said at least four of the convicted drug offenders might be executed if their requests for a presidential pardon were denied.
In the last 10 years, only one drug offender sentenced to death has been executed: Malaysian Chan Ting Tong, alias Steven Chong.
Togar argued that the prolonged delay in carrying out the death sentence had contributed to an increase in drugs cases over the last three years.
The agency office and the University of Indonesia found in a study that about 4 percent of the population -- or nine million people -- used drugs in 2003, an increase of almost 400 percent compared to the 2002 figure.
"One addict uses Rp 5 million per month on drugs, so nine million addicts means Rp 45 trillion per month on drugs alone," he said.