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JAKARTA, Indonesia – Two Australian drug traffickers will be transferred this week to an Indonesian high-security prison before their execution by firing squad, with several other foreigners to follow, the attorney-general’s office said Monday, February 16.
The Atorney General Office’s (AGO) spokesman Tony Spontana confirmed that Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, ringleaders of the so-called Bali Nine heroin trafficking group, would be transferred this week from jail in Bali to Nusakambangan island, off the main island of Java and home to a high-security prison.
“They will be the first convicts who will be transferred, followed by the others,” Spontana told AFP. “When everyone has been gathered, then we can carry out the executions.”
Jakarta is remaining tight-lipped about who will join them or when, but it invited embassy officials from 6 nations – Australia, France, Brazil, the Philippines, Nigeria and Ghana – to a briefing on Monday about how the executions will be carried out.
The Philippine national on death row, Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso, is incarcerated in Yogyakarta.
When asked whether the other prisoners would be transferred this week to Nusakambangan, where 5 drug convicts were executed last month, Spontana replied: “Hopefully”.
Futile international appeals
The news comes amid increasing international appeals for Indonesia to halt the use of the death penalty, and Indonesia’s consistent rejection of them.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last week appealed for Indonesia not to execute prisoners on death row for drug crimes. “The United Nations opposes the death penalty under all circumstances,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told Reuters.
But he failed to move Indonesia.
“I have communicated with the UN secretary general, and I told him the concerns are the same for other state leaders when their citizens are on the death row. The secretary general understands this issue clearly,” Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told reporters on Monday.
“There is no single thing that Indonesia violates in this case. Article 6 of the ICCPR (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) states that the death penalty can be applied for serious crimes. And in Indonesia, drugs are serious crimes.”
Even Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s warning last week that Australians could boycott Indonesia should the executions be carried out did not make a dent.
“I think Australians are smart when choosing where they want to go on holiday,” Marsudi said.
About 1 million Australian tourists visited Indonesia last year, and Indonesia is hoping this would increase to 1.2 million this year.
“Indonesia always wants to be friends with all countries. But at the same time, the law must be upheld,” Marsudi added.
Legal options
The Philippines has requested a judicial review of Veloso’s case, and Australia – with the judicial review requests for Chan and Sukumaran already rejected – is trying a rare legal move to free the pair: Challenging President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s decision to refuse the men a pardon. (READ: Bali Nine pair on Indonesia’s death row file rare legal challenge)
At the same time, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has vowed to pursue all legal options to save the pair amid a new claim that the death penalty judges had asked for bribes in their original trial.
Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported that the 6 judges who handed down the death penalties on Chan and Sukumaran were accused by the pair’s lawyers of offering lighter sentences in exchange for money.
It said the allegation was made in a letter from the lawyers to Indonesia’s Judicial Commission claiming a breach of ethics.
The lawyers added that the judges had come under pressure from “certain parties” to pass death sentences, the daily said.
They have asked the Judicial Commission to investigate the bribe allegations, in yet another legal bid to postpone the executions.
But Judicial Commission chief Eman Suparman told AFP that without evidence and witnesses the challenge was unlikely to succeed, and even then it would have to go to a higher court.
“The Judicial Commission cannot change the decision,” Suparman told AFP. “Only the Supreme Court is able to do so.”
AGO’s Spontana insisted the executions would go ahead, saying the legal process was completed and questioning why the bribe allegations were not aired at Chan and Sukumaran’s final appeal. – with reports from Agence France Presse and ATA/Rappler.com
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