Individuals at Risk

On 4 July 2008, Amnesty International issued an updated Urgent Action on behalf of Indonesian convicted criminal Achmad Suradji, in an attempt to save him from imminent execution. 

In 1998, Indonesia sentenced Achmad Suradji to death for killing 42 women.  Indonesian authorities say Suradji buried each woman around his property after drinking her saliva, to increase the magical powers he held as a traditional sorcerer.  Acting on advice from the ghost of his dead father who appeared to him nine years earlier in a dream, Suradji reportedly had plans to kill 70 women. 

Amnesty International is fighting to save Suradji's life.  Last year, an Indonesian senior court ruled that the death penalty did not contradict the Indonesian Constitution's guarantee of the right to life.  With the self-proclaimed go-ahead to execute, authorities plan to execute five death row inmates this month - and Suradji is the first set to die. 

What does it mean to ask a nation's citizens to support a witch doctor who offered to provide women with spiritual advice and assistance, when we know that 42 of those women never left his premises?  When the crime being discussed constitutes one of Indonesia's worst killing sprees?  This case demonstrates with extreme clarity Amnesty's position that any premature ending of a human life violates the most fundamental of all human rights - even and especially when we talk about the life of a convicted criminal.  Commuting Suradji's death sentence is perhaps the most decisive way to stand up for the universal right to life, to support the right to life of someone who has brought such despair to others.

Indonesia executes its criminals by firing squad and has legalized the death penalty for offenses related to drug trafficking in addition to murder.  Read more about Amnesty's groundwork for death penalty opposition as well as more information specific to the death penalty in Indonesia in Amnesty International's briefing on the death penalty in Indonesia. 

Marissa Brodney - Urgent Action Network