By BosNewsLife Special Correspondent Eric Leijenaar
JAKARTA/PALU (BosNewsLife)-- Three Christian men who were suspected of involvement in killing Muslims have been executed despite international doubts about the evidence against them, both officials and Christians rights investigators said late Thursday, September 21.
Fabianus Tibo, Marianus Riwu and Dominggus Silva "seems" to have been executed [by a firing squad)...This is truly a black page in the history of the Indonesian Government," said Eline de Groot an official of the well-informed human rights watchdog Jubilee Campaign in a first reaction to BosNewsLife.
"The Indonesian Government has again proven that if falls short in bringing justice to the people. A fair process seems not possible for Indonesian citizens," she added, referring to what human rights groups have called the "shaky evidence" surrounding the case, she added.
Police officials confirmed that the Christians convicted of leading a mob that killed Muslims were executed by an Indonesian police firing squad on Friday, September 22, Indonesian time, in Central Sulawesi province, news reports said.
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The men were sentenced to death in 2001, after being found guilty of leading a Christian mob in an attack that killed more than 200 people at an Islamic boarding school during Muslim-Christian clashes in Central Sulawesi's Poso region.
"It has been done... the location was around the airport", a police official who declined to be identified told Reuters news agency. He said the bodies had been taken to a police hospital.
The trio had originally been scheduled to be shot in August in Palu, the capital of the province, but the execution was then postponed at the eleventh hour after demonstrations by thousands of Indonesians and an appeal from Pope Benedict XVI.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had rejected the men's appeals for a pardon last year. They had asked him a second time for clemency last month. (Stay with BosNewsLife for continues coverage)
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