The injustice already done cannot be reversed, but there is still hope that it won’t be compounded. "Any executions that are still to take place must be halted immediately. "This was done not in order to take lives but to stop evil intentions, and the evil act of drug trafficking," Noor Rachmad, deputy attorney general for general crimes, told reporters.He added that "the rest (of the executions) will be carried out in stages", saying that the timings had not yet been decided.Amnesty International condemned the executions with the group’s Rafendi Djamin labelling them "a deplorable act". Ten others expected to have faced the firing squad, including nationals from Pakistan, India and Zimbabwe as well as Indonesians, were not put to death but officials said they would be executed at a later stage.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. "The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the European Union had also voiced opposition to the plan in recent days.It was the first round of executions in Indonesia since April last year when authorities put to death eight drug convicts, including two Australians, which sparked international outrage.Friday’s executions came after a day of frenetic activity, with distraught relatives travelling to Nusakambangan island to say farewells to their loved ones and ambulances carrying coffins over to the heavily guarded penal colony.Execution driveThe executed Indonesian was named as Freddy Budiman, while the three others, Nigerians, were: Seck Osmane, Humphrey Jefferson Ejike Eleweke and Michael Titus Igweh.Eleweke’s lawyer, Afif Abdul Qoyim, told AFP the execution should not have gone ahead as his client this week filed a legal appeal.

Source: The Nation Bangkok July 28, 2016 20:37 UTC