JAKARTA: Indonesia is nearly ready to execute by firing squad nine foreigners and an Indonesian condemned for drug smuggling as diplomatic squabbles persist over the executions.
The preparations at the execution site have been completed and four foreign convicts will be transferred to Nusakambangan Island’s maximum-security prison facilities this week, said Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo.
The four are Australians Andrew Chan, 31, and Myuran Sukumaran, 33, who are currently in a Bali jail, Raheem Agbaje Salami, 45, a Nigerian national who was born in Cordova, Spain, and 30-year-old Filipina Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso.
“We are just awaiting a report of their transfer preparation,” Prasetyo told reporters in the capital, Jakarta, but gave no date for the executions. Bali Chief Prosecutor Momock Bambang Sumiarso said Chan and Sukumaran would be moved Wednesday.
The four convicts being transferred, two Nigerians and four men from Brazil, France, Ghana and Indonesia will be executed simultaneously by a firing squad on the prison island off Indonesia’s main island of Java.
The Nigerians face execution after their clemency requests were rejected by Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo last month, said Attorney General’s office spokesman Tony Spontana.
They are Silvester Obiekwe Nwolise, 39, and Okwudili Oyatanze, 40, whose clemency was rejected after he was caught running drug transactions from behind bars.
Jokowi has received phone calls from some foreign leaders asking that the executions be canceled, but rejected their requests. He vowed not to grant mercy to drug offenders because Indonesia is suffering a “drug emergency.”
The Indonesian government last week recalled its newly designated ambassador for Brazil, Toto Riyanto, to protest the abrupt postponement of the approval of his credentials by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff amid tensions over the imminent execution of its citizen, Rodrigo Gularte, 42.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has called on Indonesia to “reciprocate” for Australia’s $1 billion aid package after the 2004 tsunami by sparing his two countrymen.
Indonesia executed six drug convicts including foreigners in January. More than 130 people are on death row, including 57 drug convicts.
