Chances of pardon from death row look unlikely for drug-trafficking British gran after Attorney General office’s ‘firm’ comments on Jokowi administration

Things aren’t looking up for death row prisoner Lindsay Sandiford, after comments made by the Indonesian attorney general last week said that President Joko Widodo would be “firm” with capital punishment sentences. 

The 57-year-old inmate was hoping to receive a pardon once Jokowi stepped up. Sandiford reportedly got the death sentence last January for trafficking cocaine worth GBP1.6 million, according to the Daily Mail

The Attorney General’s office said the five inmates currently on death row are to be executed by the end of the year, reports the Jakarta Globe. These five have failed to get their sentences appealed and they haven’t received pardons from Jokowi. 

“Their rights have all been exhausted. So it now comes to the technical aspect [of when and where],” said Basuni Masyarif, deputy attorney general for general crimes, as quoted by the Jakarta Globe.

Masyarif did not reveal the names of the five inmates up for immediate execution, but did say that they are imprisoned in Banten, Riau, and Jakarta, and that two of them are Nigerians. That means Sandiford who is in a Bali jail is at least not on the 2014 list, but her fate still remains uncertain. That also means Bali death-sentenced inmates Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran of the Bali Nine, are not on the immediate execution list, but it could just be a matter of time for them. 

Sandiford reportedly pled guilty to attempting to smuggle in cocaine through Ngurah Rai International airport in 2012 after a flight from Bangkok, claiming her adult sons had received death threats that pressured her to deliver the narcotics. 

Drug trafficking, murder, sedition, and terrorism are the main offenses that can land someone the death penalty in Indonesia. Inmates must get 72 hours notice prior to their execution by firing squad by law. Current headlining cases in Bali that are examining whether the death penalty is in order for murder are Noor Ellis, who allegedly ordered a hit on her husband in their Sanur villa, and the couple Heath Mack and Tommy Schaefer, allegeldy responsible for the St. Regis Bali suitcase killing earlier this year

There was a four-year moratorium on the death penalty in Indonesia, but it got picked back up in 2013 when five people were executed by firing squad. Masyarif says the government will execute at least 10 prisoners a year since there’s such a backlog of prisoners who are up for capital punishment. As of 2013, anti-capital punishment activists said there are 113 prisoners awaiting execution, but since then, 16 more have been handed the sentence, according to the Jakarta Globe. 

In addition to Masyarif’s comments, the new attorney general H.M. Prasetyo reportedly said that Jokowi would not drop the death penalty and drug traffickers can expect no clemency. 

“We want to send a warning [to international drug syndicates] that Indonesia doesn’t want to be a stopping place, market or even producer [of narcotics],” Prasetyo reportedly said. 

Sources: Daily Mail, Jakarta Globe

Photo by AFP



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