JAKARTA ~

Death penalty for six people, including a Dutch citizen, for narcotics offences is regrettable, according to High Representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini.

The EU is opposed to capital punishment without exception and has consistently called for its universal abolition. Death penalty is cruel and inhuman; it fails to act as a deterrent and represents an unacceptable denial of human dignity and integrity. The European Union calls on the Indonesian authorities to stop all pending executions and consider establishing a moratorium on death penalty as a first step towards definitive abolition,” Mogherini, who is also the Vice-President of the European Commission, said in a statement received here on Friday.

Earlier, Indonesian Attorney General HM Prasetyo stated that six drug convicts on death row will be executed simultaneously on January 18 at Cilacap in Pulau Nusakambangan and Boyolali in Central Java.

“Of the six drug convicts on death row, four are men and two are women,” he noted.

The six convicts are Namaona Denis (48), a Malawi citizen; Marco Archer Cardoso Mareira (53), a Brazilian citizen; Daniel Enemua (38), a Nigerian citizen; Ang Kim Soei (62) whose nationality is unclear; Tran Thi Bich Hanh (37), a Vietnamese citizen; and Rani Andriani or Melisa Aprilia, an Indonesian citizen.

Their appeals for clemency were rejected on December 30, 2014.

Five of the six drug convicts will be executed in Pulau Nusakambangan (Nusakambangan Island) and the sixth person will be executed in Boyolali, because the convict concerned has been kept in Bulu prison, Semarang, Central Java.

“In accordance with law, the six convicts will be notified three days before their execution,” the Attorney General pointed out.

According to Prasetyo, legal formalities prior to executions have been completed and technical aspects such as coordination with firing squad, clergy, and doctors have also been checked.

“We have also informed the ambassadors of the origin countries of the convicts,” he noted, adding this will be the first execution time.

Earlier, legislator from Commission III of Parliament Ruhut Sitompol urged the attorney general to immediately execute a number of drug convicts whose appeal for clemency had been rejected by the President.

“I strongly call for the immediate execution of death row convicts,” Ruhut, a lawmaker from the Democrat Party, said here on Monday.

Convicts who have committed gross crimes deserve severe punishment, he added.

Late last year, after the President rejected the convicts’ appeal for clemency, Prasetyo had said their execution will be carried out soon.

The execution, however, was delayed after the Constitutional Court said that convicts on death penalty could ask for a review of their cases more than once if they could produce new evidences against their verdict.

According to Ruhut, penalty could be carried out immediately despite the decision of the Constitutional Court especially when the verdict had been meted out years earlier.

He had remarked that death penalty order had been given years earlier; therefore, execution was necessary to uphold legal certainty and as a deterrent to drug dealers.