Joko grants rare clemency

President Joko Widodo has granted clemency to a woman who spent more than 20 years on death row for drug smuggling, the convict’s lawyer said, a move rights group Amnesty termed “unprecedented”.

Merri Utami, 49, was sentenced to death in 2002 by a court in Tangerang, west of the capital Jakarta, after she was found guilty of trying to smuggle heroin into the country. She had claimed that she was duped into becoming a drug mule.