by Our Foreign Desk

INDONESIA carried through its threat to execute seven foreign drug traffickers and one national yesterday morning, prompting protests from Australia, Brazil and the UN.

Jakarta agreed to stay the execution of Filipino woman Mary Jane Veloso after appeals from President Benigno Aquino III.

Presidential spokesman Herminio Coloma said that Ms Veloso’s reprieve gave her the chance to give testimony about how a criminal syndicate duped her into being an accomplice and drug courier.

Maria Kristina Sergio, who allegedly recruited Ms Veloso to work in Kuala Lumpur, surrendered to police in the Philippines on Monday.

Australia withdrew its ambassador to Indonesia in response to two of its citizens, Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, being among those shot by firing squad.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said that the executions had been both cruel, because the men had spent a decade in jail before being put to death, and “unnecessary, because both of these young Australians were fully rehabilitated while in prison.”

But he noted that Indonesia, a developing country with a population more than 10 times larger than Australia’s 24 million people, “will become more important as time goes on” to Australia.

“I would say to people: Yes, you are absolutely entitled to be angry, but we’ve got to be very careful to ensure that we do not allow our anger to make a bad situation worse,” said Mr Abbott.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said that the execution of a second Brazilian citizen, Rodrigo Gularte, in Indonesia this year “marks a serious event in the relations between the two countries.”

Her government had asked for a stay of execution on humanitarian grounds because Mr Gularte was schizophrenic.

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said that, given Jakarta’s pleas for clemency for its own nationals facing execution in other countries, “it is incomprehensible why it absolutely refuses to grant clemency for lesser crimes on its own territory.”

Indonesian Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo dismissed concerns that Indonesia had done long-term damage to bilateral relations through the executions.

“It’s just a momentary reaction. What we’re doing is carrying out court decisions.”