Four had already been taken out into the killing fields in the torrential rain at Indonesia's notorious Nusakambangan Island, and Singh was next.

"They came, I said 'Let me take a shower first'," he tells Fairfax Media.

"After I was ready, they prayed for me. The officer placed the handcuffs on one of my hands when suddenly the power went out."

It was pitch black, outside the rain poured down. When the lights back on, Singh saw the prison governor.

"The prison governor said into my ear: 'Singh, it is cancelled'."

Singh fell to his knees.

"I thanked God I was still given a chance. How would you feel if you were so close to death, within minutes, and then it was cancelled? It was Allah's miracle, it was a miracle for me."

Singh, an Indian truck driver sentenced to death for carrying 300 grams of heroin at the airport, is still alive after that wild night just over a year ago and living in the island's Pasir Putih prison.

But he has no idea why: "No one told me why".

Of the 14 convicted drug felons due to be shot that night as part of Indonesia's crackdown on drug crime, 10 were given a dramatic, last minute reprieve.

A year later there are still no answers. No official stay of execution has been granted, so Singh is officially still on death row. It eats at him.

"How can I feel? For 13 years I am in prison, I am poor, I don't work anymore."

"This situation has affected mental and physical health conditions of those who were spared," says a joint statement by human rights groups submitted to the UN Human Rights Council's review of Indonesia earlier this year.

Singh wrote a pleading letter to Indonesian president Joko Widodo in March, saying: "Living at the prison is a pain I have to endure, because am separated from my family and my children whom I love.

"The death penalty is ... the hardest thing in my life."

Indonesia takes an unapologetically hardline approach to drug trafficking. The President describes it as "important shock therapy".

It can be enforced against those who import even small amounts into the country. Eighteen drug traffickers have faced the firing squad since the 2014 election of the president, known as Jokowi.

Most, including Australians Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, were foreign drug criminals, whom Indonesia largely blames for destroying its future generations.

The death penalty enjoys popular support in Indonesia; media polls have typically showed about 75 per cent approval. But it has come under fresh scrutiny after the nation's ombudsman condemned the execution of a Nigerian man on the night Singh narrowly avoided death.

Ombudsman Ninik Rahayu has accused the Attorney-General's office of "maladministration" a year after the execution of Nigerian Humphrey Jefferson Ejike Eleweke. She found three violations of the law.

"The rights of the death convict should be fulfilled before an execution is carried out," Ms Rahayu says.

"In the case of Humphrey [Jefferson] this didn't happen. And this is completely against the law. Although it is too late this should not reoccur in the future."

Amnesty International says there are "systemic flaws in the administration of justice in Indonesia".

The Attorney-General office's spokesman, Muhammad Rum, insists the executions were done according to law, but the Ombudsman's findings have renewed calls by human rights groups for a moratorium on the death penalty in Indonesia.

There has been little talk of another round of executions this year, with government anti-drug rhetoric focused on shooting drug dealers who resist arrest.

In February Attorney-General Muhammad Prasetyo said they had been put on hold while Indonesia lobbied for international support to become a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Elections are in June next year.

For Singh, the future still looks grim. President Jokowi rejected his plea for clemency in March.

Asked about the 10 people who were supposed to be executed last year, the Attorney-General's office said: "We are still studying the cases".