"Indonesia Executes 8, Including 7 Foreigners, Convicted on Drug Charges" by Joe Cochrane New York Times April 29, 2015
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Defying international condemnation and rejecting 11th-hour pleas for clemency, the Indonesian government executed eight drug convicts after midnight Wednesday, including seven foreigners.
But the execution of a ninth convict, scheduled for the same time, was unexpectedly postponed at nearly the last minute, the Indonesia attorney general’s office said.
The eight executed prisoners from Australia, Brazil, and Nigeria, along with one Indonesian, faced separate police firing squads. The executions took place outside the Pasir Putih prison on the island of Nusa Kambangan off the southern coast of Java, the attorney general’s office said.
Authorities granted the stay of execution to Mary Jane Veloso, 30, a Philippine citizen, so they could review her conviction for smuggling heroin into Indonesia in 2010.
The woman’s family maintains that she was duped into carrying the drugs, hidden in a suitcase, by a drug syndicate. President Benigno Aquino III of the Philippines had repeatedly appealed for her to be spared.
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The mass execution was the second in Indonesia this year.
Okay, so what has Indonesia done wrong?
I mean, the U.S. has the death penalty and all, probably kills more than Indonesia, and yet this is appearing in my paper. For what agenda-pushing purpose?
President Joko Widodo, shortly after taking office in October, declared that Indonesia faced a national emergency of drug abuse, and he rejected 64 clemency appeals from death row drug convicts, most of them foreigners. Saying Indonesia had a right to exercise its drug laws, Joko’s government rejected international pleas to cancel the executions, including pleas from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
And he was supposed to be some breath of fresh air or something. Pffft!
The executions have angered some of Indonesia’s largest aid donors, including Australia and the European Union.
Uh-huh.
Brazil and the Netherlands withdrew their ambassadors after the January executions, and Australia may do the same this time. France has lodged a diplomatic protest and warned that diplomatic relations with Indonesia could be affected.
Advocates for the convicts have also contended that the courts that sentenced their clients were corrupt....
Courts corrupt? Please!
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Perhaps if we executed the drug dealers the problem would go away.
Related: Mary-Jane-Veloso-Protest-Indonesia
These kids should consider themselves damn lucky:
"US couple sentenced in mother’s killing" Associated Press April 22, 2015
BALI, Indonesia — An Indonesian court found a Chicago couple guilty of premeditated murder and sentenced them to prison Tuesday in the killing of the woman’s mother on the resort island of Bali.
Wait a minute. They are executing drug criminals but letting murderers live?
Tommy Schaefer was sentenced to 18 years in prison and Heather Mack to 10 years for intentionally killing Sheila von Wiese-Mack, 62, while vacationing last August. Her badly battered body was found stuffed in a suitcase inside the trunk of a taxi at the St. Regis Bali Resort.
The three-judge panel said it decided to be lenient toward Mack, 19, because she had recently given birth. ‘‘Her newborn baby badly needs a mother’s love and breastfeeding,’’ the verdict said.
The court ruled that Schaefer, 21, was guilty of fatally beating von Wiese-Mack in a hotel room at the resort, and that his girlfriend had helped with the Aug. 12 killing.
Schaefer and Mack were tried separately in the same court with the same judges and prosecutors. They have a week to decide whether to appeal the verdict.
Von Wiese-Mack reportedly did not approve of the couple’s relationship.
Presiding Judge Made Suweda described Schaefer’s deeds as sadistic, but said his politeness and expression of remorse during the trial meant he did not receive a heavier sentence.
Schaefer testified that von Wiese-Mack was angry when she learned about her daughter’s pregnancy and tried to strangle him, prompting him to strike her with a fruit bowl.
Prosecutors said Mack helped Schaefer stuff her mother’s body into the suitcase by sitting on it.
Von Wiese-Mack was the widow of jazz and classical composer James L. Mack, who died in 2006 at age of 76.
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For the record, I'm opposed to the death penalty in all cases and am done slaving over this sh**.
Protesters gathered outside the courthouse last week as the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev trial entered its second phase (Brigitte Dusseau/AFP/Getty Images).
Good point.
UPDATES:
"N. Korea may have purged 15 officials, rival claims" Associated Press April 30, 2015
SEOUL — South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers Wednesday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has executed 15 senior officials this year who were accused of challenging his authority.
Lawmaker Shin Kyoung Min said National Intelligence Service chief Lee Byoung Ho also told legislators in a closed-door briefing that Kim appeared likely to visit Russia next month to attend the 70th anniversary of its victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.
Yeah, I know, and have I ever had enough of those reminders recently between them and Japan. Not trying to minimize 'em at all, it's just there is a current round and wave of EUSraeli slaughter around the planet and.... sigh. So exhausted typing the same goddamn things year after year.
Shin said Lee didn’t reveal how the intelligence agency obtained the information.
They got WMD you say?
Since taking over North Korea’s leadership after the death of his father Kim Jong Il in 2011, Kim has removed key members of the old guard through a series of purges. The process was highlighted by the 2013 execution of his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, for alleged treason. Jang was married to Kim Jong Il’s sister and was once considered the second-most powerful man in North Korea.
Oh, I know, he's a monster and all. Best to regime change him, huh?
Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the Seoul-based University of North Korean Studies, said the purges underline Kim Jong Un’s inexperience as a young dictator who is struggling to find effective ways to control his regime.
Sort of like a new president, but I won't ask or tell.
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The South Korean spy agency has a spotty record of tracking developments in North Korea. Information trickling out of the highly secretive state is often difficult to confirm....
Oh yeah?
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Gee, I know exactly how they feel.
As for the U.S. war criminals walking around today and responding to developments, I'm sure some place can be found for them short of blessed execution.
NDU: Moscow says North Korean leader won’t attend WWII commemoration
Apparently there was some kerfuffle at the UNSC regarding that odious creature of hypocrisy Samantha Power.
