Pakistani drug convict to be executed in Indonesia on Friday

Indonesia will hold a round of executions on Friday which will include a Pakistani drug convict, an embassy official in Jakarta said on Tuesday.

Zulfiqar Ali, 52, was transferred Monday to Nusakambangan prison island off Java where executions take place, and Indonesian authorities have told Pakistani officials his execution is imminent.

Indonesian authorities are preparing to execute by firing squad at least three foreign prisoners, including citizens of Nigeria and Zimbabwe. They are among 16 prisoners who Indonesian officials have said are to be executed this year.

Rights groups including Amnesty International have expressed serious concerns about Ali’s conviction, alleging it arose out of beatings and torture and he did not have a fair trial.

Pakistan’s deputy ambassador in Jakarta, Syed Zahid Raza, said earlier on Monday his embassy has “approached all the concerned high officials to convince them that it was not a fair trial”.

Rights groups have claimed Ali, sentenced to death in 2005 for heroin possession, was beaten into confessing.

Amnesty said Ali, a father of six, was arrested at his home in West Java province on November 21, 2004, and charged with possession of 300 grams of heroin. He was not allowed access to a lawyer until about one month after his arrest, the group said in a statement in May.

It added that while Ali was being interrogated by police, he was kept in a house for three days and punched, kicked and threatened with death unless he signed a self-incriminating statement, which he later did.

Indonesia executed 14 drug convicts, mostly foreigners, in two batches last year.