CILACAP, Indonesia -- Indonesia brushed aside last-minute appeals and executed eight people convicted of drug smuggling, officials said today, although a Philippine woman was granted a stay of execution.
Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo said two Australians, four Nigerians, a Brazilian and an Indonesian man were executed today by a 13-member firing squad.
The nine prisoners were given 72-hour notices over the weekend that they would be executed by firing squad, prompting a flurry of last-minute lobbying by foreign leaders.
Even before the executions were officially confirmed, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced today that Australia will withdraw its ambassador from Jakarta in response to the killings of the two Australians, Myuran Sukumaran, 33, and Andrew Chan, 31.
Abbott said the executions were "cruel because both Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran spent some decade in jail before being executed, and unnecessary because both of these young Australians were fully rehabilitated while in prison."
Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff said in a statement that the execution of a second Brazilian citizen in Indonesia this year "marks a serious event in the relations between the two countries."
Brazil had asked for a stay of execution for Rodrigo Gularte, 42, on humanitarian grounds because he was schizophrenic. Brazilian Marco Archer Cardoso Moreira was executed in January.
Indonesia has 125 people on death row, including 49 drug convicts.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo has vowed to show no mercy to drug criminals.
The Filipino convict Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso had been arrested in 2010 at the airport in the central Indonesian city of Yogyakarta, where officials discovered about 5.5 pounds of heroin hidden in her luggage.
Prasetyo said Veloso was granted a stay of execution because the person suspected of being her boss had been arrested in the Philippines, and the authorities there requested Indonesian assistance in pursuing the case.
"This delay did not cancel the execution," Prasetyo said.
Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance, said the prisoners were killed despite having at least two ongoing legal appeals. Some were reportedly not provided access to competent lawyers or interpreters, in violation of their rights to fair trials, he said.
The United Nations had argued that the prisoners' crimes -- possession of heroin, marijuana or cocaine -- were not egregious enough to warrant the ultimate punishment.
Information for this article was contributed by Rod McGuirk, Kristen Gelineau, Niniek Karmini, Ali Kotarumalos, Teresa Cerojano and Angela Charlton of The Associated Press.
A Section on 04/29/2015