From News Reports: Jakarta, October 18: Constitutional Court Chairman Mohammad Mahfud wants people found guilty of graft and corruption executed in accordance with the country’s Anti-Corruption Law. Corrupt officials “are sentenced to only three to four years in jail, which is lighter than the sentences given to petty criminals,” the Antara news agency quotes him a saying. “In China, which carries out the death sentence for those convicted of corruption charges, there is a deterrent effect,” he said. “If death sentences were used in Indonesia for corruption, it would reduce the cases.” The idea had long existed but it seemed that some still could not accept it, he told newsmen after speaking at a seminar at Sriwijaya University, Palembang. Andalas University, Padang, West Sumatra, Law Professor Dr Saldi Isra agreed that the corrupt should be executed. But they should also be stripped of all their wealth, he said, because they had been able to use their money to rehabilitate themselves. Indonesia and the United States, Iran, Iraq, China, Afghanistan, Malaysia, and Singapore voted against a United Nations General Assembly’s proposed moratorium against the death penalty in November 2007. The moratorium is intended to eventually abolish the death penalty. The vote was 99 to 52, with 33 abstentions. “We reject the UN resolution because death penalty remains part of our positive law and therefore we cannot support it,” said Indonesia’s then permanent representative to the world organisation, Mart y Natalegawa. General Assembly resolutions are non binding. China plans to reduce the number of crimes that carry the death penalty, but the People’s Daily quotes legislator Chen Sixi as saying an online chat with citizens the dropping of capital punishment for corruption had never been considered. The Southeast Asian Times
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