The Christian Post, Fri, Aug. 11 2006 01:30 PM ET
Indonesia Delays Executions after Papal Appeal
By Chris Brummitt, Associated Press Writer
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Indonesian officials issued a last-minute stay of execution
Friday night for three Christian militiamen on death row, but they added that the
sentences would still be carried out.
[PHOTO; (Photo: AP / Tatan Syuflana) Protesters hold posters of three Christian
militiamen on death row, Dominggus da Silva, Fabianus Tibo and Marinus Riwu,
pictured on the poster from left to right, during a demonstration demanding them to be
freed in Jakarta, Indonesia, Friday, Aug. 11, 2006. Indonesian authorities were
preparing to execute the three men found guilty of carryi! ng out bloody attacks on
Muslims during sectarian fighting in 2000 that left some 1,000 dead from both faiths.]
The delay came hours after an appeal by Pope Benedict XVI to Indonesia's president
to spare the men, who were found guilty of killing Muslims in religious clashes in 2000
on Sulawesi island.
Fabianus Tibo, Marinus Riwu and Dominggus da Silva had been scheduled to die by
firing squad early Saturday.
Speaking minutes before the men were scheduled to be killed, national police chief
Gen. Sutanto said the executions would be carried out after Aug. 20, but gave no
exact date.
He said Sulawesi officials had told him the execution was delayed because they were
too busy preparing for celebrations to mark Indonesia's independence on Aug. 17.
"This is just a matter of timing," Sutanto told reporters in Jakarta.
The last-minute papal appeal came in a telegram by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the
Vatican's secretary of state. Sodano extended his greetings to the president while
"trusting that this appeal made on behalf of His Holiness will meet with a positive
outcome."
Spokesmen for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono declined to comment on the
appeal.
In the Christian-dominated town of Tentena on Sulawesi, dozens of people occupied
the local prosecutor's office and said they would not move unless the executions were
delayed, witnesses said. Scores of others prayed in the town's cathedral.
The European Union also urged the government not to carry out the punishment and
dozens of Christians in at least ! two other Indonesian cities protested the plan to put
the men to death.
The three all maintained their innocence, but their final appeal to Yudhoyono was
turned down last year.
George Aditjondro, an academic who has studied the causes of the conflict on
Sulawesi, said the government is under pressure from conservative Muslims to
execute the men after trying to speed up the executions of three Muslim militants on
death row for the 2002 Bali bombings.
Executing the Christian militants "is a kind of crude barter so that the government can
been seen as being fair to both communities," he said. "There is national politics
behind this."
Around 1,000 people from both faiths were killed in the Sulawesi conflict.
Amnesty International has expressed concerns about repo! rts indicating the trial of
the three men did not meet international standards of fairness.
Thamrin Amal Tomagola, another expert on the conflict, said prosecutors had
presented strong evidence the men were involved in violence, including a massacre of
Muslim men, women and children sheltering at a boarding school.
But he said the men, who are uneducated farmers, were not the ringleaders and killing
them would mean the state was losing valuable witnesses in later prosecutions. "I am
concerned they are being made the fall guys," he said.
Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation but it has significant Christian
minorities. In Sulawesi and some other eastern regions, Christian and Muslim
populations are roughly equal in size.
Violence between Christians and Muslims on Sulawesi had spread from the nearby
Maluku Islands, where about 9,000 people were killed. Few people have been brought
to justice from either community.
Indonesia's most recent executions were last year, when three people were killed for
drug smuggling and one for murder. Before that, its last executions were in 2001.
Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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