CILACAP: Indonesia on Wednesday executed seven foreign drug convicts including two Australians by firing squad despite a storm of international anger, reports said, but a Filipina was spared at the 11th hour.

Authorities put the seven plus a local man to death after midnight on a high-security prison island in central Indonesia.

Eight convicts — two Australians, one from Brazil and four from Africa, as well as the Indonesian — were put to death on Nusakambangan Island, MetroTV and the Jakarta Post reported.

Also read: Indonesian court rejects Australians’ appeal

However the Filipina, Mary Jane Veloso, was spared after someone suspected of recruiting her and tricking her into carrying drugs to Indonesia turned herself in to authorities in the Philippines.

“Miracles do come true,” her mother Celia told a Philippine radio station, adding that her daughter’s two young boys were awake and yelling “Yes, yes mama will live”.

The Philippine government also expressed delight at the reprieve for Veloso, whose case attracted emotive appeals for mercy from boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao among others.

“The Lord has answered our prayers,” Foreign Affairs Department spokesman Charles Jose said, as activists holding a vigil in front of the Indonesian embassy in Manila broke into cheers and hugged each other.

In contrast, there was shock and anger in Australia over the executions of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, ringleaders of the so-called “Bali Nine” heroin-trafficking gang, whose case has severely strained ties between their government and Indonesia’s.

Steven Ciobo, parliamentary secretary to Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, tweeted that “there are few greater displays of abuse of State power and regressive thinking than the death penalty”.

In Indonesian executions, convicts are led to clearings just after midnight, tied to posts and then giving the option of kneeling, standing or sitting before being executed by 12-man firing squads.

Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2015

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