Legal experts urged the Indonesian government to impose...
Legal experts urged the Indonesian government to impose a deadline for the execution of convicts sentenced to death to avoid double punishment
Legal experts urged the Indonesian government to impose a deadline for the execution of convicts sentenced to death to avoid double punishment. Noted lawyer and human rights activist Luhut M. Pangaribuan said authorities should give priority to appeals filed by convicts sentenced to death and execute them within a year of sentencing, if they had exhausted all other legal avenues available.
"Aside from controversy over the existence of capital punishment itself, it should be a main priority for the judiciary to carry out the death sentence in less than a year after the verdict. The authorities can do that if they want to," said Luhut.
Two Thai nationals -- Namsong Sirilak, 32, and Saelow Prasert, 62 -- were executed in the early hours on October 1, more than eight years after they were sentenced to death in 1996 for drug trafficking.
Sirilak and Prasert, along with Indian national, Ayodhya Prasadh Chaubey, were arrested in 1994, for carrying 12 kilograms of heroin. Chaubey was executed in August 2004.
The long delay in their execution raised concerns that the three were serving two sentences -- death and imprisonment.
Over 20 other convicts were reportedly still on death row. Three of them had been imprisoned for 12 years while two others had been in prison since 1993 and 1994 respectively. The authorities gave no clues as to when they would be executed. Luhut criticized the judicial authorities for their tardiness in deciding the fate of convicts on death row, saying that in most cases authorities seemed to ignore pleas for clemency.
Rudy Satrio, a criminal law expert from the School of Law at the University of Indonesia, acknowledged loopholes in the country's legal system concerning the maximum period death-row convicts had to wait for their execution.
"We have no law regulating when convicts must be executed. That's why we have proposed in the draft bill on legal procedures that the state change capital punishment to life if a convict is not executed within 10 years," said Rudy.
He said if the bill was approved by the House in 2005 practically no more executions were expected as long as the convict showed a willingness to change his or her attitude.
"Aside from controversy over the existence of capital punishment itself, it should be a main priority for the judiciary to carry out the death sentence in less than a year after the verdict. The authorities can do that if they want to," said Luhut.
Two Thai nationals -- Namsong Sirilak, 32, and Saelow Prasert, 62 -- were executed in the early hours on October 1, more than eight years after they were sentenced to death in 1996 for drug trafficking.
Sirilak and Prasert, along with Indian national, Ayodhya Prasadh Chaubey, were arrested in 1994, for carrying 12 kilograms of heroin. Chaubey was executed in August 2004.
The long delay in their execution raised concerns that the three were serving two sentences -- death and imprisonment.
Over 20 other convicts were reportedly still on death row. Three of them had been imprisoned for 12 years while two others had been in prison since 1993 and 1994 respectively. The authorities gave no clues as to when they would be executed. Luhut criticized the judicial authorities for their tardiness in deciding the fate of convicts on death row, saying that in most cases authorities seemed to ignore pleas for clemency.
Rudy Satrio, a criminal law expert from the School of Law at the University of Indonesia, acknowledged loopholes in the country's legal system concerning the maximum period death-row convicts had to wait for their execution.
"We have no law regulating when convicts must be executed. That's why we have proposed in the draft bill on legal procedures that the state change capital punishment to life if a convict is not executed within 10 years," said Rudy.
He said if the bill was approved by the House in 2005 practically no more executions were expected as long as the convict showed a willingness to change his or her attitude.
— SOURCES
- (Sources: The Jakarta Post, 04/10/2004)