Indonesia resumes executions after hiatus

Indonesia put to death a Malawian drug trafficker on Friday, the government said, in the country's first execution for several years. Adami Wilson was executed by firing squad in the early hours in the Thousand Islands, an archipelago popular with holidaymakers to the north of the capital Jakarta, Attorney General Basrief Arief said. The male trafficker, sentenced to death in August 2005 for smuggling one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of heroin into Indonesia, was the first of 10 people scheduled to be put to death this year, a spokesman from the attorney general's office (AGO) said.There have been no reports of executions in Indonesia since 2008, when five people were put to death. Mahfud Mannan, the deputy attorney general for criminal cases, previously told AFP that Indonesia had not executed anyone for several years, although he could not confirm when the last execution took place. Three of those put to death in 2008 were men who played key roles in bombings on the resort island of Bali that killed 202 people, mostly Western tourists. No one jailed on the resort island of Bali, where many foreigners are held mainly on drugs offences, is due to be executed this year as they are all pursuing legal challenges, according to the AGO. This includes a British grandmother Lindsay Sandiford who was sentenced to death in January for cocaine smuggling and two men from the "Bali Nine" group of Australians convicted of attempting to smuggle heroin. The AGO told AFP in February that there were 111 people on death row in Indonesia, 60 of whom are Indonesians, including two convicted terrorists. Executions in Indonesia are usually carried out by firing squad in the middle of the night in isolated locations. The prisoner is notified of his execution date at least 72 hours beforehand.