Economy before death penalty, says Indonesian minister

One of Indonesia’s most senior ministers has confirmed there are no plans for further executions ‘until our economy gets better’.

One of Indonesia’s most senior ministers has confirmed there are no plans for further executions “until our economy gets better” despite the Indonesian government denying it has imposed a moratorium on such killings.

Luhut Pandjaitan, Co-ordinating Minister for Political, Security and Legal Affairs and President Joko Widodo’s closest cabinet colleague, said yesterday that he conveyed that position to Australian ministers and officials he met at a bilateral conference on tracking ­illegal funds in Sydney.

“No, I told them we will not carry out executions for the time being; we are now focusing on the economy,” he said yesterday in ­response to questions on whether Australia had sought reassurances about no further executions.

As a direct consequence of Mr Joko’s declaration last November of “no mercy” for any drug criminal under death sentence whose legal appeals were exhausted, ­Indonesia executed 14 convicts in January and April. Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Suku­maran were killed on April 29, and 12 of the 14 executed were foreign citizens.

In the weeks following the second executions, and amid international uproar that saw Australia temporarily break off high-level political and diplomatic relations, the Jokowi administration shifted tack, using the necessity to concentrate its efforts on worsening economic conditions as an alibi for retreating from the explicit undertaking on drug traffickers.

Asked yesterday by an Indonesian reporter, “Can we call it a moratorium?”, Mr Luhut said, “(it’s) different.”

A spokesman for Attorney-General Muhammad Prasetyo, the cabinet official who oversees executions, told The Australian yesterday: “I have not heard there is a moratorium — we have not heard anything from Minister Luhut’s office.”

A Department of Foreign ­Affairs and Trade spokeswoman in Canberra said: “We are not aware of any formal moratorium being announced. Australia would welcome any moratorium or ­suspension on executions in ­Indonesia. We have a longstanding ­in-principle opposition to the imposition of the death penalty and have raised our concerns ­directly with many nations, inclu­ding Indonesia.”

There are no longer any Australians on Indonesia’s death row, but Jakarta still faces the prospect of several highly provocative executions, including British “drug grandmother” Lindsay Sandiford, sentenced to die for her role in a cocaine importation to Bali.

The position that Mr Pandjaitan described yesterday — and to foreign correspondents on Nov­em­ber 11 on the eve of Malcolm Turnbull’s meeting with Mr Joko in Jakarta — is in reality the ­government position that has prevailed since June. “We are not in a position to do executions at the moment ... until our economy is getting better,” the co-ordinating minister repeated yesterday.

Mr Luhut suggested the Indonesian government would not reconsider its undeclared suspension of executions.

The Australian has been told that after the April ­executions Mr Luhut, who was then presidential chief of staff, and Teten Masduki, who now holds that position, told Mr Joko that ­Indonesia could not afford the damage to its international relations of another round of foreigner executions.

Additional reporting: Stefanie Balogh, Gita Athika