Jokowi would ‘suspend death penalty if Indonesia wants it’

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said he would restore a moratorium on the death penalty if he won the backing of the people, after a spate of executions that drew international condemnation.

In an interview with AFP earlier this week, Mr Widodo was asked whether he would consider a moratorium, and he said: “Why not? But I must ask my people. If my people say okay, they say yes, I will start to prepare.”

Mr Widodo declared an anti-drugs campaign soon after coming to power in 2014 and refused all requests for pardons from death-row drug convicts, ending a four-year moratorium.

But in recent months he has softened his position.

A moratorium could be the first step towards abolishing the death penalty, a move that needs approval in Parliament, which has been discussing the issue for the past year.

However, Mr Widodo said it would be difficult to secure parliamentary backing without clear public support in a conservative, Muslim-majority country where voters are deeply concerned about high levels of addiction.

He cited a 2015 survey by a private pollster that found 85 per cent of Indonesians support the death penalty for drug traffickers.

Since Mr Widodo came to power, Indonesia has hauled 18 people — 15 of them foreigners — before the firing squad for drug trafficking. They include a group of eight — two Australians, a Brazilian, an Indonesian and four Nigerians — who were put to death in a single night in April 2015 on the prison island of Nusakambangan in Cilacap regency, Central Java.

The convicts were taken to a jungle clearing on the island, which houses several high-security prisons, and tied to stakes before being shot, in a move that triggered global revulsion.

The executions of Australian drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran in particular caused tensions, with Indonesia’s neighbour Australia temporarily recalling its ambassador from Jakarta.

Among the foreigners currently on death row are Frenchman Serge Atlaoui and Filipina Mary Jane Veloso, who were both pulled from the April 2015 round of executions.

A British grandmother, Lindsay Sandiford, is also on death row in Bali after she was caught smuggling a huge stash of cocaine into the resort island.

Mr Widodo has insisted the death penalty is part of Indonesia’s law and serves as deterrent against drug trafficking. However, last November he said he was “open for options” to abolish it. In another concession, only drug convicts from countries that implement the death penalty were executed last year.

International and domestic rights groups have appealed to Indonesia to put a stop to capital punishment, arguing that miscarriages of justice are inevitable in a judicial system deeply compromised by corruption.

Mr Ricky Gunawan from Community Legal Aid Foundation, a group calling for the abolition of the death penalty, said Mr Widodo’s latest comments were “a good sign that he is shifting from his stubbornness”. AFP