Relatives Of Drug Criminals In Indonesian Before Death Execution

Indonesia has advised consular officials to go to Nusakambangan, the high-security prison island where its executions are carried out, and where all of the death row convicts have now been transported to.

The government said an exact date for the executions could not be decided yet, as a judicial review was still pending for the sole Indonesian in the group of 10 people who face death by firing squad.

“We hope that the decision will be made as soon as possible so that we will have a chance to determine the D-Day of the executions,” Tony Spontana, spokesman for Indonesia’s attorney-general, told reporters.

“The theme of the impending executions is a war against drugs,” he stressed, while indicating that more than the legally required minimum notice period of 72 hours might be given to the foreign embassies.

Chinthu Sukumaran, whose brother Myuran is one of two Australians in the group on death row, was making last-minute arrangements to leave for Jakarta.

“I can’t believe this is it. We still haven’t given up hope,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Michael Chan, whose brother Andrew faces death too as a fellow ringleader of the “Bali Nine” heroin trafficking gang, was also heading to Indonesia, the newspaper said.

Consular staff assisting a Brazilian convict were told by Indonesian authorities to be in Cilacap, the port town nearest Nusakambangan, on Saturday.

Lawyers for the two Australians were to meet Australian embassy officials in Cilacap Saturday as Canberra said it was “gravely concerned” at the signs that the executions are drawing near.

“Our ambassador in Jakarta is currently engaged in making a series of representations,” Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs told AFP in a statement.

The foreigners two from Australia, one each from Brazil, France and the Philippines, and four from Africa have all lost appeals for clemency from President Joko Widodo, who argues that Indonesia is fighting a drugs emergency.

One of the convicts was previously identified by the Indonesian government as Ghanaian, but Spontana said he was in fact from Nigeria, along with three other Nigerians in the group.