A report in Jakarta on Thursday confirmed that Indonesia executed an unspecified number of convicted drug traffickers.
It said the convicts were shot by firing squad at the Nusa Kambangan penal island shortly after midnight amid pouring rain.
The attorney general’s office said late Wednesday that 14 convicts would be executed “soon.”
The Community Legal Aid Institute, which advocates for the convicts, said “those facing execution are six Nigerians, four Indonesians, two Zimbabweans, one Indian and one Pakistani.’’
Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Arrmanatha Nasir, said the convicts had been given their rights according to the laws.
He insisted that the death penalty being applied in Indonesia was not against international law.
Nasir said those sentenced to death went through a legal process and that they were big traffickers, not users.
He pointed out that 121 people were on death row in Indonesia, including 35 foreigners, mainly for drug-related crimes.
Nasir said President Joko Widodo had taken tough stance against drug trafficking since his election in 2014, adding that the country was facing drug emergency.
The lawyer of Pakistani convict, Saut Rajagukguk said it was not clear if his client, Zulfikar Ali, was spared because of a last-minute appeal or whether his execution had been postponed because of rain.
The executions were the third set carried out since Widodo took office in October, 2014.
Widodo refused appeals for clemency from relatives of the convicts and ignored calls for a halt to the executions from rights groups and the United Nations (UN).
