11 Indonesians have been sentenced to death in Malaysia for drug dealing or murder and are nowawaiting their execution. Foreign Ministry spokesman Michael Tene confirmed on Sunday that the legalstatus of the 11 convicted Indonesians was final. “They appealed the decision to the Malaysian highestcourt, but they failed to get acquitted,” Michael told The Jakarta Post on Sunday. “They are currentlyasking for amnesty from the Malaysian government.”
He said 10 of them had been punished for drug possession and dealing, and one had been charged formurder. Michael only identified the convicts as Indonesians, but tempointeraktif.com reported that theywere Indonesian migrant workers. Should the Malaysian government refuse to grant them amnesty, the 11Indonesians will be hanged.
The news came just after a recent shocking beheading of an Indonesian female migrant worker bySaudi Arabia after she was found guilty of murdering the wife of her employer. The public blamed thegovernment for not doing its best to prevent the beheading. After the incident, the Indonesian governmentdecided to ban the sending of migrant workers to Saudi Arabia starting from Aug.1, and the Saudi Arabiaquickly responded by stopping the issuance of working visas for Indonesian workers.
Migrant CARE executive director Anis Hidayah told the Post that based on her data there were about213 migrant workers in Malaysia who were on death row or were facing charges that carried the deathpenalty. “Malaysia’s lower court also sentenced 70 others to death but they are currently appealing againstthe verdict. There were also final verdicts where three others were sentenced to death,” she said.
Anis said that if the Indonesian government tackled such death sentence cases from the beginning of thetrials, the defendants could be freed from the death penalty. However, if the trial process had reached theappeal stage, it would be hard for the convicts to get acquitted, she said.
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