Jakarta – The executions of three of four death row inmates that were shot dead by firing squad in Batu Prison on Nusakambangan island on Friday breached the 2010 Clemency Law, a legal expert says.
"We received information that three out of the four convicts had requested clemency," Erasmus Napitupulu from the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR) said Friday.
The three convicts are Indonesian Freddy Budiman, Senegalese Seck Osmane and Nigerian Humphrey Jefferson. Budiman filed an appeal a day before his execution, Osmane on Wednesday and Jefferson on Monday.
According to the 2010 Clemency Law, death row convicts cannot be executed if they or their relatives appeal for clemency and the president has not rejected it. A Constitutional Court ruling in June scrapped a clause within the law that the request for clemency could only be made a year after conviction, meaning the condemned could request a presidential pardon anytime.
Attorney General Prasetyo previously said that it was too late for the death row convicts to file for clemency, referring to the article in the law that had been scrapped by the court. That article is not legally binding anymore, Napitupulu said. (wnd/ary)