Four executed at ‘Alcatraz of Indonesia’

Four of 14 drug convicts slated for execution have been shot by a firing squad at Nusakambangan prison, Central Java.

Those executed at 4am (AEST) today were Indonesian man Freddy Budiman, and Nigerians Seck Osmane, Michael Titus Igweh and Humphrey Jefferson Ejike Eleweke.

Known as “The Alcatraz of Indonesia”, Nusakambangan prison is where Australian members of the Bali Nine, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, were executed last year.

The four men were reportedly informed of their imminent executions earlier this week.

The other 10, including Indonesian woman Merry Utami, will face the death penalty at a later unspecified date, Noor Rachmad from the Attorney General Office said.

Tweeting after the executions, Community Legal Aid Institute LBH Masyarakat wrote: "we lost another client, another friend: Humphrey Jefferson. Another dark day for us ... very dark".

The multiple executions come after a barrage of emotional pleas for mercy from prisoners, their families and lawyers.

Michael Igweh's sister-in-law wept yesterday as she described how her family were still fighting for a second judicial review.

"We ask for justice to the government of honourable (President Joko Widodo) Jokowi. He (my brother-in-law) is a human, not an animal.

Open your conscience, your heart, open your eyes," she told reporters outside the prison yesterday.

Meanwhile, Myuran Sukumaran's mother Raji Sukumaran penned a letter to the president earlier this week, writing: "Please don't let these families go through what we have gone through".

According to official procedure, death row prisoners are taken to a field where a firing squad stands between five and 10 metres away and the officers wait for their commander to swing a sword, before aiming for the prisoner's heart.

If the prisoner does not die immediately, an officer will shoot them in the head.

Describing the practice as "barbaric", the UN said it marked a worrying trend with Indonesia which is the most "prolific executioner" in Southeast Asia, after ending a de facto moratorium on carrying out the death penalty in 2013.

Serious questions have also been raised about the legitimacy of the legal process that brought those to death row.

Eleweke, who was shot today, had always maintained his innocence.

He was allegedly held without access to a lawyer for five months after his arrest, did not have an interpreter at trial and was beaten during interrogations.

The Indonesian government maintains the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for drug-related crime.

WITH AAP