The executions of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran will cost about AUSD $20,000 apiece. Photo / Getty Images
The executions of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran will cost about AUSD $20,000 apiece. Photo / Getty Images
Indonesia has allocated around AUS $20,000 (NZD $20,700) for each prisoner in its 'execution budget' to kill Australian Bali Nine duo Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran this weekend and chose Nusakambangan Island for the venue because it was cheaper than other locations.
The country's Attorney General HM Prasetyo has explained the "difficulties" his office faced to implement the death penalty for six drug convicts on January 18 and why the island was chosen for that and a second round of executions, Antara News reported.
Mr Prasetyo said another venue, Thousand Islands, which is north of the capital Jakarta but in a more remote location further out to sea, had been rejected because it would blow the execution budget, costing around $25,000 per prisoner.
"The obstacles were in the form of time, location, and weather. We were looking for a place that was safe and that was in Nusakambangan, Central Java," Mr Prasetyo said after the executions in January.
He explained that the executions of six death row inmates at the start of the year had originally been planned for the Thousand Islands.
But that would have cost around 258 million Indonesia Rupiah per convict, which is equivalent to $24,400 Australian.
Taking those criteria into account, Nusakambangan Island in Central Java, was considered an appropriate venue, he said. In addition, he explained, the weather had also posed a problem during the executions in January.
Indonesian police arrive during a preparation to transfer Bali Nine duo Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran from Kerobokan prison to Nusakambangan prison for execution.
He said that this was "more than the allocated funds" and that 200 million Rupiah, ($19,710 Australian) "was earmarked for each convict".
Mr Prasetyo said that security and escort arrangements were also taken into consideration, with the more remote locations adding to the budget.
The costs of the executions, Daily Mail Australia has been told, include around $60 for a coffin. Total mortician costs are estimated to come in at just under $600 and include items such as crosses and coverlets for the bodies.
Ambulances to transport the empty coffins to the island and then bring them back to Cilacap port with the prisoners bodies was another cost, as well as the transport of any of the prisoners who wished to be cremated up to the town of Kalibagor, an hour north of Cilacap.
Mr Sura, who runs the crematorium with his wife, can only cope with two bodies for cremation at a time. Following the executions on Nuskambangan in January handled the cremations of drug traffickers, Brazilian Marco Archer and Dutchman Ang Kiem Soei.
It is not known what the two condemned Australians or their families wish to do with their remains, although the Australian government would be expected to foot the bill for returning them home.
Chan and Sukumaran landed at Cilacap in central Java at 12pm (AEDT) today and were transferred to Nusakambangan island prison via a ferry where they are set to face a firing squad.
Raji Sukumaran is surrounded by the media as she visits her son Myuran Sukumaran at Kerobokan jai. Photo / Sonny Tumbelaka
Pastor Jehoshaphat Air Wibowo and his funeral director Suhendra Putro stood in the tiny, hot room at the Javanese Christian church yesterday in Cilicap, making some of the final preparations for the looming executions of Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.
The first coffins arrived last week in Cilacap for the expected executions of 11 convicts on death row for drug offences and Mr Putro has since brought in another six.
Other equipment recently arrived are six large wooden crosses, six pillows, six satin covers and six sets of cross-shaped coffin nails, individually bagged the way that furniture stores, such as Ikea, package their screws.
"We have several sized coffins. Standard or medium size is for most people and jumbo size is for bigger people," he told Daily Mail Australia.
"Foreigners are bigger than Indonesians. Maybe Australians. Chan is not big. Mr Sukumaran, he is big, yes?"
The jumbo-sized coffin among Mr Putro's stack at the church is around two metres long - no longer than the medium-sized - but with a considerably wider girth, around 90cm wide rather than about 75cm.
"It is not the stomach," Mr Putro said, crossing his arms to show how a body was placed in a coffin, "It is the shoulders."
He paid about six million Rupiah - around $600 Australian dollars - for the coffins and funeral items from a firm in Yokyakarta, which is a four-hour drive from Cilacap along a traffic choked highway.
The coffins and their corresponding crosses, covers and pillows, arrived in the past few days.
A receipt showed six 'puti' or coffins for 4.05 million Rupiah ($401.81), six 'salib' or crosses for 420,000 Rupiah ($41.67), six 'slove' or pillows for 180,000 Rupiah ($17.86), six ' tule' or covers at 480,000 Rupiah ($47.64), plus ' kirim' or transport at 750,000 Rupiah ($74.44) and a 70,000 Rupiah ($6.95) fee for a man to help lift the coffins.
Mr Putro, who has been a mortician since 1992 and considers his profession "a calling from God" said he did not know whether he would need medium or jumbo-sized coffins because "the police haven't told me yet".
But there was no time to order in any more of the specially made white ruched satin style he currently had.
"They will be plain, no material because it is an emergency order," he said.
Meanwhile he, his assistant Mr Sulamin and Paster Wibowo are keeping the coffins in a hot, dry room with mothballs, so as to prevent mold or insects from damaging them.
Struggling to shift the caskets in the tiny crowded room with Mr Sulamin on one end and himself on the other, Mr Putro said each one weighed about 60kg, although the jumbo size was about 70kg and if it rained on proceedings, the wooden structures absorbed about another 10kg in weight.
He said he was on standby for the police to give him the word that the executions would go ahead.
"Then on the day, the ambulances will come, one for each, with the coffins labelled for each prisoner and the ambulances also named," he said.
"Then I will go at 10pm to the island and wait for the executions. Afterwards the bodies are placed on tables and myself and my assistants go and prepare them for the coffins."
Mr Putro said he did not personally pray for the souls of the condemned prisoners, "but I pray I can carry out a good and proper job."
He said three of the five inmates executed on Nusakambangan Island on January 18 this year "had smiles on their faces" when he has dressed their bodies.
Four Indonesian and five foreign prisoners apart from Chan and Sukumaran are listed for possible execution in this "round".
The Indonesians are multiple murderers Syofial aka Iyen Bin Anwar, Harun bin Ajis and Sargawi aka Ali Bin Sanusi and Zainal Abidim, who imported 58.7kg of cannabis.
The foreigners are Mary Jane Veloso, Filipina importer of 2.6kg of heroin, French ecstasy lab operator Serge Ataloui, Ghanian Martin Anderson who imported just 50g of heroin, Nigerian Raheem Agbaje Salami (5.3kg of heroin) and the mentally ill Brazilian inmate, Rodrigo Gularte, who has been on the island for most of the eight years since he imported heroin in surfboards.
Andrew Chan, 31, and Myuran Sukumaran, 33, were convicted in 2005 in relation to the 'Bali Nine' heroin importing ring of 8.3kg of the drug.
Pastor Wibowo said he would offer his help to give religious counsel to any of the men or women who were to be executed, but that he did not believe in it.
"I say only God has the right [to take someone's life] not the government," he said.
