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Tag: Indonesia

  • Indonesia Transfers 7 Foreign Convicted Drug Smugglers To Prison Island To Be Executed

    Indonesia Transfers 7 Foreign Convicted Drug Smugglers To Prison Island To Be Executed

    JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Eight convicted drug smugglers, including seven foreigners, will be transferred to an Indonesian prison island this week for imminent execution despite international appeals for clemency, an official said Monday.

    Among the eight are Andrew Chan, 31, and Myuran Sukumaran, 33, the ringleaders of a group of nine Australians arrested in 2005 for attempting to smuggle 8.3 kilograms (18.3 pounds) of heroin to Australia from the Indonesian resort island of Bali. The seven other members of the group — dubbed the “Bali Nine” by Australian media — have received prison sentences ranging from 20 years to life.

    In addition to Chan and Sukumaran, five men from France, Brazil, Ghana, Nigeria and Indonesia, and a woman from the Philippines, will face a firing squad after being moved to Nusa Kambangan prison, Attorney General’s Office spokesman Tony Spontana said, without giving exact dates. Six other drug smugglers, including five foreigners, were executed in January at the same prison, located off Indonesia’s main island of Java.

    Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has rejected appeals by Australia’s government for clemency for Chan and Sukumaran, and vowed not to grant mercy to any other drug offenders because Indonesia is suffering a “drug emergency.”

    Australia has abolished capital punishment and opposes executions of any Australian overseas.

    Lawyers for the two Australians, who are currently being held at a Bali prison, filed a complaint in an administrative court last week to challenge Jokowi’s rejection of the appeals, arguing that it was made without consideration of their remorse and rehabilitation. A hearing on the complaint is scheduled for next week.

    Spontana, however, said the executions would not be delayed. “Their legal options were exhausted after their clemency was rejected by the president,” he said. “The next step is execution.”

    In Australia earlier Monday, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he had personally appealed to Jokowi to stop the executions.

    “Like millions of Australians, I feel sick in the pit of my stomach when I think about what is quite possibly happening to these youngsters,” he told reporters.

    Abbott said his government has been trying to appeal to Indonesia’s sense of itself as a stable democracy under the rule of law.

    “What I don’t want to do is turn this into some kind of test of strength,” he said. “I think we are much more likely to back the Indonesians into a corner than to get the result we want.”

    Six former Australian prime ministers on Monday added their voices to calls to spare the Australians.

    Former prime ministers Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating, John Howard, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard issued statements in support of the pair published in The Australian national newspaper on Tuesday.

    “As a deep, long-standing friend of Indonesia, I would respectfully request an act of clemency,” wrote Rudd, who was prime minister from 2007 until 2010, then again in 2013.

    “Mercy being shown in such circumstances would not weaken the deterrent effect of Indonesia’s strong anti-drug laws,” wrote Howard, who was prime minister from 1996 until 2007.

    Indonesian Foreign Ministry officials met with embassy representatives from the foreign death row inmates’ countries Monday to discuss the executions. The representatives and the Indonesian officials declined to talk to the media after the meeting.

    United Nations human rights experts have expressed concern at reports indicating trials for some of the defendants did not meet international standards of fairness and have called for an immediate halt to further executions in Indonesia.

    Indonesia has extremely strict drug laws. On Jan. 18, it executed six drug convicts by firing squad, including foreigners from Brazil, Malawi, Nigeria, the Netherlands and Vietnam, brushing aside last-minute appeals by foreign leaders.

    There are 133 people on death row in Indonesia, including 57 for drug crimes and two convicted terrorists.

     

    Source: https://sg.news.yahoo.com

  • 2 Foreigners Found Dead In Hotel 81 Palace Geylang

    2 Foreigners Found Dead In Hotel 81 Palace Geylang

    Two people were found dead in Hotel 81 Palace at Lorong 16 Geylang on Sunday (Feb 1), in what is believed to be a murder-cum-suicide case.

    The Singapore Civil Defence Force said they were alerted to the incident at 7.50pm. A woman in her 20s and a man in his 30s were pronounced dead at the scene.

    Channel NewsAsia understands that the two dead are a 29-year-old woman from Indonesia and a 31-year-old man from India. Both were in Singapore on work permits.

    They were both found motionless in a room on the third floor of the hotel. The man was fully dressed, while the woman was partially clothed, with visible injuries on her body.

    The hotel’s manager declined to comment on the incident.

    Police investigations are ongoing.

     

    Source www.channelnewsasia.com

  • Radar Data Suggests QZ8501 May Have Ascended Too Quickly And Stalled

    Radar Data Suggests QZ8501 May Have Ascended Too Quickly And Stalled

    JAKARTA — An AirAsia plane that crashed last month with 162 people on board was climbing at an abnormally high rate, then plunged and suddenly disappeared from radar, Indonesia’s transport minister said today (Jan 20).

    Mr Ignasius Jonan told Parliament that radar data showed the Airbus 320 was climbing about 6,000 feet (1,828m) a minute before it disappeared on Dec 28.

    “It is not normal to climb like that, it’s very rare for commercial planes, which normally climb just 1,000 to 2,000 feet per minute,” he said. “It can only be done by a fighter jet.”

    He said the plane then plunged and disappeared from radar.

    Mr Jonan did not say what caused the plane to climb so rapidly.

    In their last contact with air-traffic controllers, the pilots of AirAsia Flight 8501 asked to climb from 32,000 feet to 38,000 feet to avoid threatening clouds, but were denied permission because of heavy air traffic. Four minutes later, the plane disappeared. No distress signal was received.

    Survey ships have located at least nine big objects, including the jet’s fuselage, in the Java Sea. The plane’s “black boxes” have been recovered but are still being analyzed.

    The plane was en route from Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, to Singapore.

    Only 51 bodies have been recovered so far. Rough sea conditions have repeatedly prevented divers from reaching the wreckage.

     

    Source: www.todayonline.com

  • Brazil And Netherlands Recall Ambassadors From Indonesia As Their Citizens

    Brazil And Netherlands Recall Ambassadors From Indonesia As Their Citizens

    Brazil and the Netherlands recalled their ambassadors from Indonesia and expressed fury Sunday after Jakarta defied their pleas and executed two of their citizens along with four other drug offenders.

    The other convicts to face a firing squad were from Vietnam, Malawi, Nigeria and Indonesia. The six were the first people executed under new President Joko Widodo.

    Indonesia has tough anti-drugs laws and Widodo, who took office in October, has disappointed rights activists by voicing support for capital punishment despite his image as a reformist.

    He defended the executions, saying drugs ruin lives.

    A spokesman for Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said she was “distressed and outraged” after Indonesia ignored her last-ditch pleas and put to death Marco Archer Cardoso Moreira, who was convicted of smuggling cocaine into Indonesia in 2004.

    “Using the death penalty, which is increasingly rejected by the international community, seriously affects relations between our countries,” the spokesman said in a statement.

    The Brazilian ambassador to Jakarta was being recalled for consultations, the spokesman added.

    Meanwhile Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said the Netherlands had also recalled its ambassador over the execution of Dutchman Ang Kiem Soei, and in a statement described all six deaths as “terribly sad”.

    “My heart goes out to their families, for whom this marks a dramatic end to years of uncertainty,” Koenders said. “The Netherlands remains opposed to the death penalty.”

    Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Prime Minister Mark Rutte had been in contact with the Indonesian president about the matter, he said, and the government had done “all in its power” to try to halt the execution.

    – In line with law –

    Widodo on Sunday defended the death penalty in a Facebook post.

    “The war against the drug mafia should not be half-hearted measures, because drugs have really ruined the good life of the drug users and their families,” he said.

    “There is no happiness in life to be gained from drug abuse. The country must be present and fight with drug syndicates head-on,” he added.

    “A healthy Indonesia is Indonesia without drugs.”

    All the prisoners, who had been sentenced to death between 2000 and 2011, were executed shortly after midnight, the attorney general’s office said.

    The 53-year-old Brazilian, who was caught with drugs stashed in the frame of his paraglider at Jakarta airport, and the 62-year-old Dutchman were executed on Nusakambangan Island, home to a high-security prison, off the main island of Java.

    A Nigerian, Daniel Enemuo; Namaona Denis, from Malawi; and an Indonesian woman, Rani Andriani, were executed at the same location.

    The sixth convict, Vietnamese woman Tran Thi Bich Hanh, was executed in the Boyolali district in central Java.

    They were all caught attempting to smuggle narcotics apart from the Dutchman, who was sentenced to death for operating a huge factory producing the drug ecstasy.

    All had their appeals to the president for clemency rejected last month.

    Vietnamese foreign ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said Hanoi had asked Indonesia “to ensure Vietnamese citizens’ legal rights and consider reducing their sentences in a humanitarian way” since Hanh’s arrest in 2011. But it was unclear whether they had asked for her sentence to be commuted.

    Vietnam also uses the death penalty for drug offences and has sentenced dozens of foreigners over such crimes, although it has been decades since a foreign national was executed in the communist country.

    Jakarta had an unofficial moratorium on executions for several years from 2008 but resumed capital punishment again in 2013. There were no executions last year.

    Widodo, known by his nickname Jokowi, has taken a particularly hard line towards people on death row for narcotics offences, insisting they will not receive a presidential pardon since Indonesia is facing an “emergency” over drug use.

    Following Sunday’s executions, the number of people on death row for drugs-related offences stood at 60, around half of whom are foreigners, said a spokesman for the national narcotics agency.

    Widodo’s tough stance has sparked concern for other foreigners sentenced to death, particularly two Australians who were part of the “Bali Nine” group caught trying to smuggle heroin out of Indonesia in 2005.

    One of the pair, Myuran Sukumaran, also had his clemency appeal rejected last month but authorities say he will be executed with fellow Australian Andrew Chan as they committed their crime together.

    Chan is still awaiting the outcome of his clemency appeal.

    Also on death row is British grandmother Lindsay Sandiford. She was sentenced to death in 2013 after being caught trying to smuggle cocaine into Bali.

     

    Source: https://sg.news.yahoo.com

  • Main Body Of QZ8501 Found By Singapore Navy Ship

    Main Body Of QZ8501 Found By Singapore Navy Ship

    A Singaporean navy ship on Wednesday located the main body of the AirAsia plane that crashed into the Java Sea late last month, raising hopes that bodies of most of the 162 victims will now be found.

    Underwater photos showed the cracked fuselage and part of a wing of Flight QZ8501, that went down on December 28 in stormy weather during a short trip from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.

    The discovery of the fuselage is the latest boost in a lengthy search operation in Indonesian waters hampered by bad weather. Just 50 bodies have so far been recovered with most of the victims believed to be trapped inside the Airbus 320-200’s main body

    It followed the retrieval this week of both the plane’s black boxes, which contain vital information to help investigators determine what caused the crash.

    AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes confirmed the fuselage had been found in a tweet, saying: “It is so so sad though seeing our aircraft. I’m gutted and devastated.”

    “We hope all our guests are there,” he added.

    Singapore’s Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said in a Facebook post that the MV Swift Rescue had located the wreckage, which was 26 metres (85 feet) long and about two kilometres from where the plane’s tail was found earlier.

    On the photos accompanying the post, taken by the ship’s remotely operated vehicle, the words “now” and “everyone” are visible, apparently from AirAsia’s motto “Now Everyone Can Fly” painted on the plane’s exterior.

    Indonesia’s national search and rescue chief Bambang Soelistyo said that divers would head to the main body on Thursday.

    “It is already dark so we will carry out the dive tomorrow morning with the target to find the victims which may still be around it or trapped in the body,” he said.

    “If the divers have any difficulty, the next step will then be to lift the body and the wing.”

    He added that two more victims were found Wednesday, meaning 50 bodies have so far been retrieved.

    The Singapore navy ship was part of a huge international hunt for the plane, which also included US and Chinese ships.

    – Vital black boxes –

    The so-called black boxes — which are actually orange in colour — have been flown to Jakarta, where Indonesia’s National Transport Safety Committee is leading a probe into the accident, helped by experts from countries including France and the United States.

    The country’s meteorological agency has said bad weather may have caused the crash but only the black boxes will be able to provide definitive answers.

    Investigators have started retrieving data from the recorders and converting it into a usable format, which will take around a week, before the lengthy analysis process can begin, committee head Tatang Kurniadi told AFP.

    The flight data recorder holds a wealth of information about every major part of the plane, with details such as the jet’s speed and the direction it was heading in, while the cockpit voice recorder stores radio transmissions and sounds in the cockpit.

    The committee has said a preliminary report on the accident will be produced within a month, and a final report after a year.

    At a port near Pangkalan Bun, the search headquarters on Borneo island, Indonesian investigators and their French counterparts also began examining the tail, which was lifted out of the water at the weekend.

    Before take-off, the plane’s pilot had asked for permission to fly at a higher altitude to avoid a major storm but the request was not approved due to other planes above him on the popular route.

    In his last communication, the experienced pilot said he wanted to change course to avoid the storm. Then all contact was lost, about 40 minutes after take-off.

    All but seven of those on board the flight were Indonesian. The foreign nationals were from South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Britain and France.

     

    Source: https://sg.news.yahoo.com