13 October 2008

Executions in Indonesia

Executions in Indonesia are governed by the provisions of Law No. 2/PNPS/1964 on the Procedures for Carrying Out an Execution. Among other things this Law regulates the number of shooters to be in the firing squad and the distance the shooters can be from the condemned person. This is a team of 14 and more than five meters but less than ten meters, respectively.

The shots are to be fired at the heart and some members of the team will fire live rounds while others will fire blanks. This might sound like it lessens the burden of the shooters as they supposedly do not know whether they fired a live round or a blank.

However, I am reliably informed by a couple of former SAS soldiers that any soldier worth his salt can tell the difference between a live round and a blank. My guess is that the police officers of the Mobile Brigade that are tasked with this duty will also be able to tell the difference between a live round and a blank. The law does not stipulate how many rounds are to be live and how many are to be blank.

The Law also states that if the initial volley does not extinguish the condemned person's life then a single pistol shot to the temple is to finish the job. I would have figured if the firing squad were any good at their jobs then 5 or 6 shots to the heart would probably be a pretty instantaneous death as far as I can tell.

There will be an executioner. It seems the executioner's job is to lower the sword that signifies the shots are to be fired. I am guessing there will probably be witnesses on the scene, maybe a spiritual advisor, and a doctor to declare a time of death.

I cannot imagine what it must be like to be counting the days, hours, and minutes to your execution.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

you can tell blanks from live rounds AFTER you pull the trigger. they didn't know before hand. Also, some of the rifles used here are so old, most often, they don't even know if it'd work at all, so it's more for the redundancy element (also some thrill factor). There was a discussion about using automatic but couldn't decide on the magazine size (it'll solve the blanks/live thing).

i personally think that is far too much of a hassle when the point being to have the person dead. the method matters very little.

Chop chop.

Rob Baiton said...

Tree...

Maybe I did not make that clear enough. However, my point was after the firing of the round, someone who knows the difference will be able to tell the difference.

I would have figured that Brimob would have had pretty good weapons. Aside from the point of having someone dead is trying to protect the shooters from the psychological torment of having killed someone (albeit on the orders of a superior).

The idea being that none of the shooters will know who made the fatal shot.

It would seem that to some the method matters a whole lot. The method needs to be as instantaneous as possible or if it is not instantaneous then it must be painless.

All interesting arguments.

Unknown said...

rob, of course, was only joking. duh, you need to lighten up.

i heard those guys want to be hung or something. far as i'm concerned, put them in front of a truck and do away with it already.

Rob Baiton said...

Tree...

Oops, thought you was being a little more serious than that.

Oh well!

Nope, last I heard they wanted to be beheaded as this was the way of the martyr.

Sounds like it won't be long now.