18 NIGERIANS ON DEATH ROW IN INDONESIA

 The Ambassador Indonesia Embassy

38 Grosvenor Square London W1K 2HW

Your Excellency,

 18 NIGERIANS ON DEATH ROW IN INDONESIA

 We write to express our grave concerns over the fate of 18 Nigerian citizens whom we understand are facing the death penalty in Indonesia.

 From information available to us, these citizens of Nigeria are currently detained in Indonesia prisons. Their alleged offences were apparently committed either as they arrived in your country on a visit or while they were living there. We are further informed that although every citizen of Indonesia have a right to full legal representation, these people have not been given full access to justice or allowed proper legal representations before they were found guilty of the various offences. The few that were supposedly represented did not understand the language in which they were prosecuted. As a result they did not understand the charges against them and therefore were unable to put up any requisite defence. We are also informed that their requests for further appeals against their sentences have met with serious obstacles as the prisoners are expected to pay as much as $20,000.00 for legal representations which obviously they cannot afford.

 Although they have continued to protest their innocence and the Nigerian government led a delegation to discuss their fate and demand justice for them in 2008, Indonesia government have failed to heed the pleas of the prisoners or the Nigerian government delegation but are rather determined to proceed with the planned execution of the prisoners between June and August of 2010. 

 We condemn the planned execution in every respect and find it extremely worrying as it completely offends common sense, natural justice and the fundamental right to life which every human being is guaranteed under many national laws. Additionally, Indonesia is a signatory to the Human Rights Convention. Therefore any attempt to execute any of the prisoners without fair trial and justice in accordance with the law and Human Rights Convention will amount to a gross breach of the Indonesia government’s duty under the Human Rights Convention.

 Given that the planned execution may begin as early as June, we believe that time is now extremely of the essence and if we fail to act immediately, these prisoners may lose their lives.

 Accordingly, we have resolved to take up the matter immediately and work along side the Indonesia government and many other human rights organisations in order to ensure that justice is done and that the prisoners are not treated less than anyone else.

 In this regard we contacted your office to request a meeting with you when we may discuss our plan of action and solicit your support in obtaining relevant information from the Prison and Justice departments in Indonesia but your Consular team advised us to write in with our request. They promised that an appointment will be arranged as soon as they receive our letter.

 We apologise for any inconvenience and trust that you appreciate the urgency in this matter along with the value which we attach to the lives of our fellow citizens.

 We are happy to confirm that we are in communication with the leader of the Nigerian House of Representative Committee on Diaspora affairs and are contacting many other organisations for additional support.

 Should you require any information about us, we refer you to our website www.arisenigeria.org which will assist you in this regards. We also enclose a newspaper report which brought the plight of these prisoners to our attention.

 Finally, we must point out that we condemn drug trafficking or any form of crime in their entirety and will not encourage any Nigerian to commit any such act in Nigeria or anywhere else in the world. We respect the right of the Indonesia government to prosecute anyone suspected of committing any punishable offence in Indonesia. However, we will not condone the unlawful killing of anyone and wish to work with Indonesia government towards ensuring that justice is properly done and that there is no irreparable miscarriage of justice.

 We thank you in anticipation of your kind assistance and await your urgent response.

Yours faithfully

Jenny Okafor (Campaign Organiser)

ARISE NIGERIA