MEDAN, Indonesia, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- Indonesia executed an Indian national early Thursday for smuggling heroin into the country 10 years ago.
Ayodhya Prasad Chaubey, 65, was executed by a 12-member firing squad at a secret location in North Sumatra province, at 2:30 a.m. Thursday, the official Antara news agency reported.
Chaubey's execution was carried out after President Megawati Sukarnoputri and the Supreme Court turned down his appeal for clemency.
Chaubey and two Thais were arrested in the North Sumatran city of Medan in 1994 after airport officials confiscated 12 kilograms of heroin they allegedly brought into the country. The three were convicted and sentenced to death in 1996.
Chaubey was among nearly 70 people on death row in Indonesia, many of them nationals of African and Asian countries sentenced for drug offenses.
The Indian government recently objected to Chaubey's execution, saying he was too old to face a firing squad.
Chaubey was the first death-row drug-smuggling convict to be executed in Indonesia in more than a decade. The last was Malaysian Chan Ting Tong, alias Steven Chong, shot by firing squad in the early 1990s.
Indonesia's attorney general's office has said it is prepared to execute seven other foreigners convicted of drug trafficking in the country, after the president turned down their clemency pleas.
