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| Happening now! Bali 9 Indonesian execution begins |
The execution of a group of prisoners convicted for drugs offences in Indonesia have begun. There had been speculation that the execution would be suspended due to international pressure on the Indonesian government. Eight out of the 9 convicts have been executed while the only woman in the group from Philippine has been spared for the moment.
The Indonesians brushed off the frantic last-ditch efforts by lawyers, diplomats and government officials to halt the executions by firing squad of seven foreigners and a local man.
The European Union and governments of France and Australia urged President Joko Widodo on Tuesday to halt the proceedings. “It is not too late to change your mind,” they said in a statement. "Forgiveness and rehabilitation are fundamental to the Indonesian judicial system as well as in our system.”
The prisoners, clad in special white suits, were tied to poles in the darkness in a jungle location on Nusakambangan Island after midnight and were then shot.
On Tuesday afternoon, family members met with the condemned prisoners and then made heart-wrenching pleas to Widodo to spare the lives of the nine.
"I saw today something that no other family should ever have to go through,” Michael Chan of Australia, the brother of Andrew Chan, told journalists after saying farewell to his brother in prison.
“Nine families inside a prison saying goodbye to their loved ones. Kids, mothers, brothers, cousins, sisters, you name it they were all there. To walk out of there and say goodbye for the last time, it's torture. “
"There has to be a moratorium on the death penalty,” he added.
In the Philippines, authorities charged Maria Kristina Sergio with recruiting Mary Jane Veloso, the Filipina who was spared death, to smuggle drugs, according to local media. Veloso is a single mother with two sons who said she went to Indonesia to get work, unaware the suitcase Sergio’s boyfriend had given her as a gift contained drugs.
Sergio told local media she surrendered after receiving death threats but denied duping Veloso into carrying drugs.
Philippine authorities said Veloso was an innocent victim of human trafficking. Her lawyers argued she didn’t get a fair hearing because she wasn’t given an interpreter translating into her language, Tagalog.
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the “ghastly process” the families of the condemned Australians underscored how chaotic the lead-up to the executions had been.
“They do deserve respect and they do deserve to have dignity shown to them at this time of unspeakable grief, but that doesn’t seem to have been extended to them at this time,” Bishop said on Australian television shortly before the executions.
Earlier Tuesday, Australian Atty. Gen George Brandis called on Indonesia to halt the executions while legal proceedings relevant to the cases of Chan and and fellow countryman Myuran Sukumaran were continuing, including allegations that judges in their trial demanded a bribe for a sentence of less than 20 years.
"These proceedings raise serious questions regarding the integrity of the two men's initial sentence and the clemency process,” Brandis said in a statement Tuesday. “It is important that these actions are heard in full before any further steps are taken.”
Sukumaran’s mother, Raji, and sister Brinta wept uncontrollably as they begged for clemency after saying farewell to him in Besi prison.
"I just had to say goodbye to my son and I won't see him again," the mother told reporters between sobs. "Please, Mr. President, please don't kill my son. Please don't.”
Supporters held candlelight vigils and circulated online petitions calling for mercy. They said the prisoners included a pastor, a painter, a gospel singer, a poverty-stricken single mother trying to raise two sons alone, a dollar-a-day laborer and a man suffering from mental illness.
Chan was recently ordained as a pastor in prison. Sukumaran took up painting in jail and gave art lessons. The two men have admitted their guilt in the drug crime and expressed remorse.
Their supporters say both have been rehabilitated in their 10 years of incarceration.
Nigerian gospel singer Okwudili Oyatanze recorded songs in prison, including one called “God Bless Indonesia.”
Lawyers for Rodrigo Gularte, a Brazilian, argued that he should be spared because he suffers from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder -- and under Indonesian law, those with mental illnesses shouldn’t face prosecution.
The only Indonesian in the group, Zainal Abidin, was a laborer in a furniture factory earning a dollar a day when an acquaintance arrived at his home late at night with three sacks that he said contained rice. Police raided his house and it turned out the bags contained marijuana. Abidin insists he didn’t know his friend had the drugs.
Other Nigerians -- Martin Anderson (Raheem Agbaje Salami?), Jamiu Owolabi Abashin and Sylvester Obiekwe Nwolise -- were also executed.
Lawyers and family of the two Australians displayed a painting Tuesday just completed by Sukumaran that depicted a human heart, a reference to the spot on the body for which the firing squad would aim. The nine prisoners facing death had all signed the back of the painting, which bore the words, “one heart, one feeling in love.”
Veloso wrote that Jesus would “always love us” and added the words “keep smile” beneath her signature.
Nwolise wrote that he was “covered with the blood of Jesus Christ.”
Before she was spared, Veloso’s family conveyed the messages she left for her two sons, ages 6 and 12, not to fight and that she would be with them in spirit, according to Philippine media.
“Love each other, don't fight. Your father has another wife and I will be gone. If you are rowdy, I will pinch you. If you feel anything cold, that's me,” the message went, according to her mother, Celia Veloso.
Indonesia has this year seen a sharp increase in executions for drug crimes under President Widodo who has declared the country is suffering from a drug emergency, and in recent months has rejected all clemency bids by drug offenders.
In January, Indonesia executed five foreigners and one Indonesian for drug offenses, including citizens of Vietnam, Malawi, Nigeria, Brazil and the Netherlands, sparking international condemnation.
-Additional information from Latimes
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