Bali nine executions: Paradise island Nusa Kambangan scene of slaughter
THE last hours of Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan will be spent on a lush island fringed with white sand beaches but with a reputation as Indonesia’s Alcatraz.
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MYURAN Sukumaran and Andrew Chan will spend their final hours at Nusa Kambangan, a lush tropical island with white sand beaches with the ominous reputation of being Indonesia’s Alcatraz.
Somewhere on the 121 square kilometre island, in the middle of the night, they will all be lined up and shot.
Nusa Kambangan is essentially a prison island, with its only permanent residents the staff and inmates of the six jails.
Alcatraz is however probably an overrated description.
The island itself is very close to Cilicap in Central Java which is just a short journey on a prisons-operated ferry which goes back and forth, taking guards and staff and visitors.
Aside from the six jails there is little else on the island.
One section is public, with a little beach and old fort — a relic of the colonial days. Tourists often take a small fishing boat over to swim and picnic on weekends on the white sand.
It was on Nusa Kambangan, in the early hours of January 18, that five prisoners were shot dead for drug trafficking, with the sixth killed in a different area of Central Java.
It is not known yet which prison Chan and Sukumaran will be taken to out of the six options.
During last month’s round of executions, after the condemned were given their 72 hours of notice, they were moved from the jail where they been serving their time, to another where they were placed in isolation.
In those final three days they were allowed visits from their families, religious and spiritual advisers and lawyers, but were essentially separated from the rest of the general prison population.
There are several areas on the island which are used for executions. The January 18 killings were in an area of an old disused jail called Limus Buntu.
Previously, the Bali bombers were executed in an area called Nirbaya, near an orange grove.
Not all Indonesian executions are conducted on Nusa Kambangan but given the huge public and media interest in foreigners being killed, authorities suggest that the island is the easiest place, for security reasons, to assemble the firing squad.
The area can be secured and the air and sea space around it closed off to stop prying eyes.
Under Indonesian law, members of the public, aside from a religious figure chosen by the condemned, must not witness an execution.
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