The Presidency of the European Union deeply regrets that two Nigerians on death row for drug offenses, Mr Samuel Iwuchukwu Okoye and Mr Hansen Anthony Nwaolisa, have been executed before a firing squad in Nirbaya area in Indonesia on Thursday 26 June 2008.
In view of the number of pending executions of prisoners on death row in Indonesia, the European Union reiterates the its principled stance against the death penalty and recalls the fact that the European Union has raised this stance with the Indonesian authorities on several occasions.
The European Union urges the Indonesian government to refrain from carrying out more executions and thereby restore a de facto moratorium on executions, as called for in the United Nations General Assembly resolution on a Moratorium on the use of the death penalty, adopted in December 2008. Furthermore the European Union hopes that Indonesia will consider full abolition of the death penalty and to enshrine this abolition in the penal code of the Republic of Indonesia.
