JAKARTA: The conservative Indonesian province of Aceh – known for publicly caning gay people, adulterers and gamblers – is considering the introduction of beheading as a punishment for murder, a top Islamic law official said on Wednesday.

Syukri M Yusuf, the head of Aceh’s Sharia Law and Human Rights Office, said the provincial government has asked his office to research beheading as a method of execution under Islamic law and to consult public opinion.

“Beheading is more in line with Islamic law and will cause a deterrent effect. A strict punishment is made to save human beings,” Yusuf told reporters. “We will begin to draft the law when our academic research is completed.”

Aceh is the only province in Muslim-majority Indonesia to practise Sharia law, a concession made by the central government in 2005 to end a decades-long war for independence.

Yusuf said if Sharia law is consistently applied, then crime, particularly murder, will decrease significantly or disappear.

He said punishment for murderers has in practise been “relatively mild” and they could reoffend after release from prison. He pointed to Saudi Arabia as an example to follow in practising severe punishment for murder.

Indonesia has the death penalty for crimes such as murder and drug trafficking, which it carries out by firing squad. Its last executions were in July 2016 when three Nigerians and one Indonesian convicted of drug offences were shot on the Nusa Kambangan prison island. – AP