Indonesian cremates executed Nigerian drug convict

Indonesia executed four drug convicts Friday but 10 others

due to face the firing squad were given an apparent reprieve in

a confused process one lawyer condemned as a "complete

mess".

The executions on a remote prison island went ahead despite

strong protests from international rights groups, UN Secretary-

General Ban Ki-moon and the European Union who had urged

Indonesia not to proceed.

Four inmates -- three Nigerians and one Indonesian -- were put

to death just after midnight. One of the Nigerian prisoners was

cremated hours later, while the bodies of the three others

were being prepared for burial.

Questions swirled about the handling of the process, which

saw the other 10 prisoners slated for death -- including from

India, Pakistan and Zimbabwe -- spared at the last minute.

Authorities did not give a reason for the reprieve, but the

prison island where they were expected to be executed in

outdoor clearings was hit by a major storm as the other

sentences were carried out.

Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo said Friday the 10

inmates had been returned to their cells, suggesting their

executions were not imminent.

"The fate of the other 10 we will determine later. We will see

when the right time will be," Prasetyo told reporters.

"But one thing is for sure -- we will never stop executing

people on death row."

Local prisons chief Molyanto, who like many Indonesians goes

by one name, said the major security seen in recent days

around the island had been reduced and he thought more

executions were unlikely in the near future.

Ricky Gunawan -- whose client Humphrey Jefferson Ejike

Eleweke was among those tied to a post and shot in the

jungle clearing -- said lawyers awaiting the grim news were

kept in the dark as to why the executions didn't proceed as

planned.

"I would say the execution this morning was a complete

mess," Gunawan told AFP from Cilacap, near Nusakambangan,

a remote island housing several high-security jails.

"No clear information was provided to us about the time of

execution, why only four (were executed) and what happens to

the 10 others."

Family members had already been shocked to learn on

Thursday morning that their relatives would be put to death a

day ahead of schedule.

Distraught relatives rushed to Nusakambangan to say farewell

to their loved ones.

- Process 'not respected' -

President Joko Widodo has defended dramatically ramping up

the use of capital punishment, saying that Indonesia is fighting

a war on drugs and that traffickers must be heavily punished.

Friday's executions were the third under Widodo since he took

office in 2014. The last round was in April 2015, when

authorities put to death eight drug convicts, including two

Australians.

The executed Indonesian was named as Freddy Budiman,

while the three Nigerians were Seck Osmane, Humphrey

Jefferson Ejike Eleweke and Michael Titus Igweh.

Another of Eleweke's lawyers, Afif Abdul Qoyim, told AFP the

execution should not have gone ahead as his client this week

filed a legal appeal.

"When this process in not respected, that means that this is no

longer a country that upholds the law, nor human rights," he

said.

Amnesty International has identified what it calls "systematic

flaws" in the trials of several of the death row inmates, and

urged Indonesia not to proceed while appeals for clemency

were pending.

Two people whose cases had raised high-profile international

concern among rights groups were not executed.

The first was Pakistani Zulfiqar Ali, whom rights groups say

was beaten into confessing to heroin possession, leading to

his 2005 death sentence.

The other was Indonesian woman Merri Utami, who was

caught with heroin in her bag as she came through Jakarta

airport and claims she was duped into becoming a drug mule.

The National Commission on Violence Against Women, which

has been lobbying for Utami to receive clemency, called for

answers over the fate of the 10 remaining prisoners.

"We hope the attorney general's office will provide a clear and

transparent explanation," the commission's Sri Nurherwati told

AFP.