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Published: September 19, 2008

An Australian priest has testified that execution by shooting is torture in a case brought before Indonesia s Constitutional Court by the convicted Bali bombers.

ABC News reports that Fr Charlie Burrows gave a detailed description of the executions of two Nigerian drug dealers.

He was giving evidence to the Constitutional Court in support of the argument that death by firing squad is torture.

Fr Burrows said the two men were cruelly executed at midnight in a field while tied to crucifix like poles with rubber rope.

They wore black veils and their hands and feet were cuffed before a doctor marked the place of their hearts with a piece of black cloth.

"They were moaning again and again for seven minutes," Fr Burrows told the court according to an The Sydney Morning Herald report. "I think it is cruel, the torture."

Desperate to provide some sort of consolation, Father Burrows sang Amazing Grace as the pair slowly died from their bullet wounds. They were pronounced dead 10 minutes after being shot.

Fr Burrows was a late addition to the constitutional challenge, in place of the notorious East Timorese militia leader Eurico Guterres, whom the bombers had called to testify about the agony of being shot.

Their lawyer, Adnan Wirawan, said the Irish born priest was chosen because he had witnessed firing squads, while Guterres "had just seen people shot".

Fr Burrows said police aimed M16 assault rifles at the prisoners hearts from just a metre away. The pair had been strapped with tyre inner tubes to wooden crucifixes "like mummies", he recalled.

In a last ditch effort to avoid execution, the bombers are claiming firing squads are a form of torture and are unconstitutional.

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=9098

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