Australian drug smugglers see family as 72-hour execution clock ticks down

[umbertino]

Families visit as Indonesian prosecutors insist there will be no reprieve for Bali Nine gang members Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan

 

 

Tracy McVeigh, Guardian Australia staff and agencies

 

Sunday 26 April 2015 04.42 BST

 

 

 

 

Hopes of a last-minute reprieve for two men on death row in Indonesia have all but faded after it became apparent the country’s authorities are planning an execution by firing squad for early in the week.

 

Families and embassy officials have been given notice by prosecutors that the men, Myuran Sukumaran, 34, and Andrew Chan, 31, are likely to be shot, and lawyers say the men have been given 72 hours’ notice. It is expected an execution will take place of a total of 10 people, nine of them foreigners, who are on Indonesia’s death row for drug offences.

 

Sukumaran and Chan were ringleaders of the so-called “Bali Nine” – Australians convicted of conspiring to smuggle 8kg of heroin from the Indonesian island to Australia in 2005. They are the only two of the group to have been sentenced to death. The remaining seven were given life sentences.

 

On Saturday Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, said she feared the worst. Australia has come under fire for its part in what was a joint investigation between the two countries into the drug plot. Allowing the Indonesian authorities to make the arrest, instead of the Australian federal police, left the door open for the possibility of Australian citizens to face the death penalty.

 

The families were rushing to the island where the condemned prisoners had all been moved into isolation cells, said Sukumaran’s cousin Niranjela Karunatilake. “Most of the family is now in Australia so they are heading to Indonesia now. It’s a desperate time and we don’t really know what else we can do to try and stop this, if there is anything left we can do.

 

“The death penalty is never the answer, but in Myu’s case, when he has done so much to repent and improve prison conditions, it would be a real tragedy if his life was cut short,” said Karunatilake. “We are not asking for Myu to be freed, all we ask is for mercy, that he keeps his life.”

 

Lawyers are pleading with Jakarta to respect legal proceedings that several are still pursuing and international pressure for mercy has grown.

 

France has pledged to work with Australia to halt the executions; the prime minister, Tony Abbott, is due to meet the French president, Francois Hollande, on Monday.

 

Hollande has warned that the execution of Atlaoui could damage relations with Indonesia.

 

The foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, said on Saturday the government would continue to seek clemency from the Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, for both men.

 

“It is not too late for a change of heart,” she said.

 

Chan and Sukumaran’s lawyers have lodged a challenge with the constitutional court but the attorney general does not acknowledge it, and says the pair have exhausted their appeals.

 

But his office is yet to respond to moves by lawyers for a Filipina, Mary Jane Veloso, who filed a second request for a judicial review late on Friday.

 

Veloso’s lawyer, Edre Olalia, is pleading for Indonesia to pause its execution plans or risk executing an innocent woman.

 

Veloso, 30, a single mother, has always pleaded innocent to drug smuggling charges but was not able to properly defend herself at trial, where she did not have a qualified Tagalog translator.

 

Her lawyers were denied a chance to appeal this in a judicial review but with 10 minutes to spare on Friday, they lodged a new, stronger appeal.

 

This time they have evidence from Philippines narcotics investigators and a timeline that shows for long periods Veloso did not have custody of the baggage that drugs were hidden inside when she arrived in Indonesia in 2010.

 

Veloso refused to sign the notice of her execution on Saturday but is set to face the firing squad alongside Chan and Sukumaran on Tuesday regardless of the new appeal.

 

An Indonesian, Zainal Abidin, has an appeal before the courts due to be decided on Monday but has been moved in preparation for execution.

 

Atlaoui apparently won a reprieve based on an administrative matter.

 

The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon, has added to global calls for Indonesia to halt its execution plans.

 

“The secretary-general urges president Joko Widodo to urgently consider declaring a moratorium on capital punishment in Indonesia, with a view toward abolition,” a spokesman for Ban said.

 

Australia’s acting Labor leader and opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman, Tanya Plibersek, said: “I believe it seriously damages the ability of Indonesia to plead for its own citizens internationally when it is ignoring the pleas of countries such as Australia for the lives of our citizens.”

 

She said it was vital Abbott and Bishop contact their Indonesian counterparts.

 

Both are in Europe on official business.

 

“It is unacceptable that while there are still legal processes under way that this sentence should be carried out,” Plibersek said.

 

She said it was not the time to speculate on what might happen if the executions went ahead: “I think the time now is to focus on what we might do to delay the application of this sentence.”

 

Amnesty International has been campaigning for the men and is calling for a stay of execution. Last week an exhibition was held in its London offices of paintings by Sukumaran, who was born in London. He has become well known in Indonesia for his work helping other inmates with rehabilitation and has been praised by the prison’s warden for being key to reducing drug use inside the jail.

 

In Indonesia, a prisoner has the choice of standing or sitting and whether to have their eyes covered by a blindfold or a hood. Firing squads are made up of 12 people, three of whose rifles are loaded with live ammunition, while the other nine rifles contain blanks. The squad fires from a distance of between five and 10 metres.

 

Fionna Smyth, Amnesty UK’s head of campaigns, said efforts would continue until the last possible moment. “Where there’s life there’s hope. The eyes of the world are on Indonesia,” she said. “Does it really want to be a country associated with ‘execution island’ rather than the exotic beaches it was once famed for?”

 

 

Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan have been moved to special cells as they await execution. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

 

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/26/australian-drug-smugglers-face-firing-squad