Indonesia to execute drug traffickers Tuesday

A group of convicted drug-traffickers in Indonesia, nine of whom are foreigners, has been informed that they will be executed in the next few days, an official said Sunday.
"They were given the notifications on Saturday," the attorney general's spokesman Tony Spontana said, reports dpa.
The 72-hour notification means that the convicts could face the firing squad by Tuesday on the prison island of Nusa Kambangan in Central Java.
The executions have drawn strong criticism from the United Nations and other foreign leaders whose citizens are among the death-row convicts, such as France, Brazil and Australia and civil society organisations.
Antara state news agency reported Frenchman Serge Areski Atlaoui has been withdrawn from the execution list as he still has a pending legal option in the Supreme Court to review his case.
Agus Salim, a lawyer for the Philippine woman facing execution, Mary Jane Veloso, said her legal team has filed a second appeal to review her case.
"We are presenting new evidence that shows Veloso is not a courier in the drug trafficking. She was found carrying the drug, but unintentionally, because it was slipped into her luggage by one of her associates. We hope the new evidence could commute her verdict to a prison sentence," Salim said.
Philippine President Benigno Aquino said Sunday he would make a last-ditch effort to save Veloso when he meets Indonesian President Joko Widodo on the sidelines of the ongoing annual leaders' summit of the Association of South-East Asian Nations in Kuala Lumpur.
Global rights group Amnesty International, AI, urged Indonesia to put a halt on the executions and to establish a moratorium on all executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.
"Should these executions proceed, Indonesia will be contravening international human rights law and standards," Rupert Abbott, research director of AI's South-Eeast Asia and Pacific regional office, said in a statement.
"Further, international law prohibits the use of the death penalty against those with mental or intellectual disabilities such as in the case of Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte who has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia," the statement said.
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said in a statement Saturday that her government would continue to seek clemency from President Widodo for Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, the two Australians facing the executions.
"Legal challenges remain before the Constitutional Court and Judicial Commission, which raise the fundamental questions about the integrity of their sentencing and the clemency process. These claims should be heard," Bishop said.
Indonesia executed six convicted drug-traffickers, including five foreigners, in January.
The second batch of drug convicts facing the firing squad include two from Australia, four from Nigeria, and one each from Indonesia, France and Brazil.