Bali Nine pair among eight executed for drug offences in Indonesia
Baku, April 29, AZERTAC
The Indonesian government has executed by firing squad eight people for drug offences, including two Australians, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumuran, who were the subject of a years-long campaign for clemency.
The development marks the end of year of campaigning to spare the men, who were sentenced to death in 2006 for their part in the Bali Nine heroin-smuggling ring, according to the Guardian.
Also executed were four Nigerians, a Brazilian and an Indonesian. All had been convicted of drug crimes.
A ninth prisoner scheduled to face the firing squad, Filipino woman Mary Jane Veloso, received a last-minute temporary reprieve.
Veloso, who was arrested in Yogyakarta in 2010 with 2.6kg of heroin in her suitcase, was granted a stay of execution after the woman she claims set her up “voluntarily surrendered” to police on Tuesday.
A spokesman for the Indonesian attorney general, Muhammad Prasetyo, said Veloso’s death sentence had been postponed so she could testify against the woman, Maria Kristina Sergio.
The killings were carried out at 12.30am, local time, on the prison island of Nusa Kambangan off the coast of Java.
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