Indonesia executed eight convicted drug smugglers by firing squad on Nusa Kambangan island in Central Java in the early hours of 29 April 2015.[1] Seven were foreign nationals, including two Australians of the Bali Nine group, and the eighth was Zainal Abidin, the only Indonesian on the condemned list.[1] A Filipina prisoner, Mary Jane Veloso, was spared, and a Frenchman’s execution was delayed while his legal challenge continued.[1]
Zainal Abidin was the only Indonesian on death row and the only convict executed for cannabis, which he possessed in the amount of 58.7 kilograms.[2] He had been charged with marijuana possession and first sentenced to 18 years before receiving a death sentence.[3] Police had arrested him with accomplice Aldo bin Hasan Umar on 25 December 2000 on a tip from neighbours, and the Palembang District Court sentenced Aldo to 20 years the previous September; Aldo did not appeal.[4]
His case-review petition, filed in 2005, lay buried among other documents until the Supreme Court examined it in 2015, with the chief justice admitting the delay was the court’s own fault.[2] The court issued its decision on 27 April 2015, two days before the execution, after Abidin had already been moved to an isolation cell.[2] A day after the execution, reports surfaced that his clemency file had been misplaced by the Palembang District Court.[3]
