INDONESIA. COUNTRY PREPARES TO EXECUTE TWO BROTHERS FOR TRIPLE MURDER

July 7, 2005: Indonesian authorities would soon execute two brothers on death row for a premeditated triple murder during a robbery in the island of Sumatra in 2002, Antasari Azhar, chief prosecutor of West Sumatra province, said. We have been notified of a letter issued by the minister of laws and human rights that gives the approval in principle for the executions to take place in Jakarta," Azhar said.
Sadawa Hia, 23, and Taroni Hia, 26, had been sentenced to death in March 2002 for the murder of three members of a family in the West Sumatran town of Maninjau in December 2001.
The executions would bring to eight the number of death sentences carried out in the past 12-months in Indonesia, which ignored complaints from rights groups in August 2004 and reintroduced capital punishment after a three-year pause.
The two men, who had a plea for clemency rejected by then president Megawati Sukarnoputri in July 2004, were being detained at Jakarta's Cipinang maximum security prison. (Sources: Agence France Presse, 07/07/2005)