Zimbabwean man among 16 death row inmates facing the hangman in Indonesia this year

Indonesia President

Indonesia plans to put 16 death-row convicts to death this year, including a Nigerian and a Zimbabwean, Attorney-General H.M. Presetyo said on Wednesday. Asked if there were any foreigners among the convicts to be executed, Prasetyo told reporters: 

"We have foreigners, among them from Nigeria and Zimbabwe." he said.

Mr. Prasetyo also disclosed that no convicts from the United States, Europe or Australia were on the list to be executed. 

A 59-year-old British woman, Lindsay Sandiford, was sentenced to death after being convicted in 2013 of trying to smuggle cocaine worth $2.5 million into the country.

A Philippine maid, Mary Jane Veloso, got a last-minute reprieve last year in response to a request from Manila after an employment recruiter, whom Ms. Veloso had accused of planting drugs in her luggage, gave herself up to police in the Philippines.

The death row convicts will be executed "immediately after" the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, Mr Mohammad Rum, a spokesman for the attorney-general's office, told AFP, last month but he did not give a precise date.

Mr Rum did not say who would face the firing squad, but Indonesia has been waging a campaign against narcotics and in 2015 executed 14 drug convicts, mostly foreigners, sparking international outrage.

Source: AP/REUTERS