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Indonesian undertaker told to get ready

The man who looked after the bodies of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran says he has been told to get ready for executions "tonight".

Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan
The Indonesian undertaker who looked after Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran's bodies has been told to prepare ahead of more controversial executions. Source: AAP

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Source: AAP


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An Indonesian undertaker who looked after the bodies of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran after they were executed has been told to "be ready tonight" for further executions.

"I've been told to be ready at Cilacap District police office at 8pm (11pm AEST) tonight. If that is so, most likely they will be executed around midnight or very early tomorrow," Suhendro Putro told AAP on Thursday.

Indonesia's Attorney-General Office has yet to confirm how many people are to face the firing squad or the exact timetable, but a number of prisoners received notifications on Tuesday, which usually signals 72 hours' notice.

Mr Putro said he was told to organise 14 people to help him bathe the bodies of Muslim and Christians.

He believes he will need to bathe 14 bodies.

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It comes after 14 coffins and 17 ambulances were seen going into the notorious Nusakambangan island prison around 6am (9am AEST) on Thursday morning.

It is the same site where Chan and Sukumaran faced the firing squad, along with six others, in April last year.

International condemnation around the executions is intensifying, while prisoners, including Indonesian mother of two Merry Utami and Nigerian man Humphrey "Jeff" Ejike Eleweke - both drug convicts - have filed last-minute clemency appeals.

Eleweke's lawyer Ricky Gunawan has lashed out at the country's "corrupted and broken" legal system, saying they risk putting innocent people to death.

Eleweke, who has always maintained his innocence, alleges he had no lawyer during his arrest, interrogation or the first five months of detention, nor did he have an interpreter.

Subsequent evidence submitted to court on appeal in which prisoners say they witnessed another man admit to the crime that Eleweke was incarcerated for was also rejected, Mr Gunawan said.

Serious questions have also been raised about the validity of the case against another death row drug convict, Zulfiqar Ali, a Pakistani national and textile worker who, like Eleweke, alleges he was beaten in custody.

It has also been revealed that former director-general of human rights in the ministry of law, Hafid Abbas, made a recommendation more than a decade ago to then-president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono that Ali should be pardoned.


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