TWENTY TAPAKTUAN RESIDENTS TO BE CANED ON FRIDAY

Tapaktuan, July 16 (ANTARA) - A total of 20 residents of Tapaktuan town are to be caned under Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD) province's shariah law for moral offenses, a local public prospector said.

"The 20 offenders will be caned in the compound of Tapatuan's Istiqamah Mosque on Friday (July 17," head of the Tapaktuan Public Prosecutor's Office, Hasni Thamrin, said here Thursday.

His office had assigned five men to carry out the caning with each of the offenders to receive six to nine lashes, Thamrin said.

Eighteen of the defendants had been convicted by a Shariah Court for gambling and two for sexually indecent acts, he said.

Before and after the caning, the offenders would undergo medical checkups by a team of doctors specially assigned for the purpose.

Meanwhile, the South Aceh police command had prepared 15 of its members to guard the caning event that would be staged in public. However, the police officers would be present at the scene as backup only because responsibility for the maintenance of public order during the lashings was to be borne by personnel of the shariah law enforcement council, South Aceh Police Chief Adjunct Senior Commissioner Awi Setiyono said.