Death and Let Live : A look at death sentences and executions in Indonesia.

The sentencing to death of two men this month for their role in a bomb blast at a Jakarta shopping mall last year brings the number of people on death row in Indonesia to more than 40 but executions have rarely been carried out since 1995, mainly due to international pressure. 

Executions became standard fare in Indonesia following the abortive coup attempt of October 1, 1965, blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). Hundreds of thousands of people suspected of leftist tendencies were killed or arrested. But of those detained, only about 1,000 were ever brought to trial. They were subsequently sentenced to lengthy prison terms or death. 

In addition to suspected communists, thousands of separatist rebels and their supporters in the provinces of Aceh and Irian Jaya (Papua) were slain in extra-judicial killings carried out by state security forces during former president Suharto's regime. 

The Suharto regime also targeted street hoodlums and other criminals for informal execution. Between 1983 and 1985, state-sponsored death squads killed about 5,000 alleged criminals. Often the victims' bodies were left in the streets. Suharto bragged in his 1989 autobiography My Thoughts, Words and Deeds that the killings were part of his government's "shock therapy" policy to bring crime under control. 

Although court-ordered death sentences are rarely carried out, unofficial executions are all too common in the form of street justice, whereby mobs kill criminals on the spot. 

Also, police often use deadly force to apprehend alleged criminals, such as drug traffickers from Africa. Police generally claim the suspects had to be shot because they were fleeing, resisting arrest or threatening them. 

Since 1978, at least 38 people have been officially executed by the state. No less than 30 were political prisoners, most of them having languished in jail for many years before being taken out of jail to be shot. 

Executions in Indonesia are generally carried out by a 24-member firing squad. At least one of the guns supplied to members of the squad is not loaded, so the soldiers will not know who fires the fatal shots. 

Indonesia is among 90 countries that impose the death penalty, but data from Amnesty International shows that most of the world's executions are carried out by only a handful of countries: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the US. 

Capital offenses in Indonesia include: crimes against national security, subversion, assassination of senior state officials, murder, theft resulting in murder, gross human rights violations, piracy and drug offences. 

Prisoners sentenced to death by civilian or military courts have the right to appeal to a higher court and then the Supreme Court. A request for presidential clemency can be made immediately after the initial sentence, but is usually made only if courts of appeal uphold the death sentence. 

At least 45 prisoners are now on death row in Indonesia. Many are foreigners convicted of drug trafficking offenses. 

Following are chronologies of executions since 1978 and some recent death sentences handed down in Indonesia. The lists are by no means complete but are intended to show the particular offenses that resulted in capital punishment sentences. Much of the information concerning the executions of former political prisoners and Islamic activists is from an unpublished annex to Marlies Glasius' authoritative Foreign Policy on Human Rights - Its Influence on Indonesia Under Soeharto, Utrecht University Law Faculty, 1999. 

Chronology of Executions Since 1978 

1978 
Law professor J.E. Sahetapy (now a legislator with the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle) concludes that because there have been no executions since 1970, Indonesia has de facto abolished the death penalty. But later in the year authorities execute Oesin Batfari, who was convicted for murder in 1967. 

1980 
January 5: Hengky Tupanwael, convicted for murder in 1964, is executed. 

February 6: Kusni Kasdut, convicted for murder in 1964, is executed. 

1983 
April 13: Islamic fundamentalist Imron bin Mohammed Zein, convicted for hijacking and other acts of terror, is executed. 

1984 
September 12: Dozens of Muslim protesters shot dead by the military at Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta. 

1985 
February 14: Islamic fundamentalist Salman Hafidz, convicted for his role in the same acts of terrorism as Imron bin Mohammed Zein, is executed. 

May 14: 1965 coup-related political prisoner Mohamad Munir is executed. 

July 1-3: Coup-related prisoners Djoko Untung, Gatot Lestario, and Rustomo are secretly executed, despite appeals from foreign governments and human rights groups to spare their lives. 

1986 
September 12: Islamic activist Maman Kusmayadi is executed. 

September 26 - Early October: Nine coup-related prisoners convicted to death are executed. They are: Syam alias Kamaruzaman alias Achmed Mubaudah, Supono Marsudidjojo alias Pono, Mulyono alias Waluyo alias Bono (all three apparently executed on September 26), Amar Hanefiah, Wirjoatmodjo alias Jono alias Tak Tanti, Kamil, Abdulah Alihamy alias Suparmin, Sudijono and 
Tamuri Hidayat. 

October 9: Dutch communist newspaper De Waarheid reports that coup-related prisoner Wismar Marpaung has been executed. This is never confirmed. 

1987 
October 31: Liong Wie Tong alias Lazarus and Tan Tiang Tjoen, both convicted for murder in 1962, are finally executed. 

November 17: Coup-related prisoner Sukarman is secretly executed on East Java's Madura Island. 

1988 
April: Islamic activist prisoner Abdullah Umar probably executed during this month. 

June/July: Islamic activist prisoner Bambang Sispoyo probably executed at some point during these two months. 

October 15: Coup-related prisoners Sukarjo and Giyadi Wignyosuharjo are executed. Attorney General Sukarton Marmosudjono says the implementation of the death penalty is not contrary to the Pancasila state ideology. 

November 30: Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Admiral Sudomo says the death penalty should be reassessed because it is contrary to Pancasila. 


December 14: The execution of Islamic activist prisoner Azhar bin Mohammed Safar is apparently scheduled for this date, but cancelled at the last moment. 

1989 
February 6-8: Dozens of people shot dead by the Army in an attack on an Islamic school in the village of Talangsari, Lampung. 

October 16: Coup-related prisoners Tohong Harahap and Mochtar Effendi Sirait are secretly executed in Medan, North Sumatra. 

1990 
February 15-16: Coup-related prisoners Satar Suryanto, Yohannes Surono, Simon Petrus Soleiman and Noor (or Norbertus) Rohayan are executed. 

March 4: Six coup-related prisoners convicted to death, Ruslan Wijayasastra, Sukatno, Iskandar Subekti, Asep Suryaman, Bungkus and Marsudi, are taken from their cells at Cipinang prison to the office of the Coordinating Agency for National Stability (Bakorstanas). Attorney General Sukarton Marmosudjono refuses to sign the execution orders for the six. 

March 8: The six are returned to their cells. 

March 10: Amid mounting international protests against the recent and planned executions, Armed Forces commander Try Sutrisno declares that capital punishment is an internal affair of Indonesia, and foreigners should not interfere in the cases. But due to foreign pressure the executions of the six remaining death-row coup-related prisoners are not carried out. 

1991 
February 8: Azhar bin Muhammad Safar is executed. 

1992 
December: Sergeant Adi Saputro, convicted to death for murder, is executed. 

1995 
Malaysian national Chan Ting Chong alias Steven Chong, sentenced to death in 1986 by West Jakarta District Court for heroin possession, is executed. He is the first person to be executed in Indonesia for drug-related offenses. Two other convicted criminals are also executed early in the year. 

April: Political prisoner Ruslan Wijayasastra, arrested in 1968 and sentenced to death six years later, dies after his health declines in Cipinang prison. 

August 17: Justice Minister Oetojo Oesman says that five executions will be carried out soon, including those of two political prisoners. He refuses to give names or dates, but activists identify the prisoners as Nataneal Marsudi and Bungkus. The three others are murderers. The surviving political prisoners on death-row are eventually released following the May 1998 
resignation of Suharto. 

2001 
May 19: Gerson Pandie and Fredik Soru, sentenced to death for a multiple murder in 1989, are executed in a forest east of Kupang, the capital of West Timor. 


Chronology of Recent Death Sentences 

1988 
Kamjai Khong Thavorn, a Thai seaman arrested in August 1987 in Samarinda, East Kalimantan, is sentenced to death for possession of 17.76 kilograms of heroin. 

1997 
April 22: Special Forces (Kopassus) Second Lieutenant Sanurip is sentenced to death by a military tribunal in Jayapura, Irian Jaya, for killing 11 soldiers and five civilians with an automatic weapon in Timika in March 1996. 

May 13: Harnoko Dewantono is sentenced to death by a Jakarta court for murdering his younger brother, girlfriend and business partner in Los Angeles. 

May 15: Women's Affairs Minister Mien Sugandhi demands the death penalty for rapists. She says police officers, prosecutors and judges handling rape cases should all be women. The maximum penalty for rape is 12 years in prison. 

December 11: Two East Timorese rebels, Luis Maria da Silva and Francisco da Costa, are sentenced to death by Baucau District Court for murder, subversion, separatism and illegal possession of firearms. It is the first time since East Timor was occupied by Indonesia in 1975 that the death sentence had been handed down in the territory. 

1998 
February 21: Attorney General's Office spokesman Agung Barman Zahir threatens food hoarders with the death penalty amid rising prices and fears of shortages of basic commodities. He says the government could use a 1965 law on storehouses that allows for the death penalty on hoarders. 

April 27: Medan Court in North Sumatra sentences black magic practitioner, Achmad Suradji alias Nasib Datuk Kelewang, to death for the murder of 42 women in a ritual killing spree that started in 1986. 

2000 
February 18: Tangerang District Court sentences two Nepalese nationals, Til Bahadur Bhandari and Bahadur Gurung to death for smuggling 1.764 kilograms of heroin inside 204 capsules in their stomachs into the country on July 30, 2000. 

August: Tangerang District Court sentences three people to death for trafficking cocaine. 

November 16: Denpasar District Court sentences French national Michael Blanc (27) to life for smuggling 3.85 kilograms of hashish from India into Bali on December 26, 1999. The prosecutor had demanded the death 
sentence. 

2001 
January 16: East Timorese militia leader Eurico Guterres, on trial at North Jakarta District Court for weapons offenses committed in West Timor in September 2000, says he wants to receive the death penalty because he feels rejected by the Indonesian government. The court does not oblige. He is later sentenced in April and released before the end of May. 

March 5: Palu District Court sentences to death three Christian mob leaders, Fabianus Tibo, Dominggus Da Silva and Marinus Ruwu, for inciting a massacre of Muslims in 2000 near Poso town in Central Sulawesi province. 

May 14: Purwokerto District Court in Central Java sentences to death a notorious car thief and murderer, Rio Alex Bulo. 

August 13: Tangerang District Court sentences a Nigerian and a Zimbabwean to death for smuggling in 600 grams and 850 grams respectively of heroin from Pakistan. 

September 4: Tangerang District Court sentences a Nigerian to life imprisonment for attempting to smuggle in one kilogram of heroin from Pakistan in capsules in his stomach. Presiding judge Warsito says the death penalty was not handed down because it was "found to be no longer effective in curbing drug trafficking". 

October 9: President Megawati Sukarnoputri demands greater use of the death penalty in efforts to eradicate the illegal drugs trade. 

November 29: Tangerang District Court sentences a Pakistani man, Muhammad Abdul Hafeez, to death for attempting to smuggle 1,050 grams of heroin into the country from Pakistan on June 26. 

December 3: South Sumatra High Court sentences marijuana trafficker Kiagus Zainal Abidin to death. He had previously been sentenced to 18 years in prison by a lower court for possession of 58.7 kilograms of marijuana. It is the first time a marijuana offender has been put on death row. 

December 27: Tangerang District Court sentences Edith Yunita Sianturi to death for smuggling a kilogram of heroin into the country from Thailand. 

2002 
March 14: Tangerang District Court sentences a Thai woman to death for smuggling 650 grams of heroin from Bangkok into the country. 

May 1: Prosecutors at Tangerang District Court demand the death penalty for Indonesian national Merry Utami for smuggling 1 kilogram and 10 grams of heroin into the country from Nepal. 

May 7: Central Jakarta District Court sentences Malaysian Islamic fundamentalist Taufik bin Abdullah Halim to death for his role in the August 2001 bomb blast at Atrium Plaza shopping mall. 

May 13: Indonesian Islamic fundamentalist Edi Setiono is sentenced to death for his role in the Atrium Plaza blast.