Bali Nine member Andrew Chan has had his clemency plea against a death sentence rejected by Indonesian president Joko Widodo.
All legal appeals against his death sentence for drug trafficking have now been officially exhausted.
A Denpasar district court spokesman made the announcement, which the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs has now confirmed.
Earlier this month Chan’s fellow ringleader in the Bali Nine plot, Myuran Sukumaran, received notice that his appeal had been turned down.
The pair, who are both from Sydney, attempted to traffic more than eight kilograms of heroin to Australia in 2005.
Mr Widodo has vowed not to grant clemency for drug-related offences and on Sunday six convicts — including five foreigners — were executed.
Indonesian attorney-general HM Prasetyo last week said the timing of Sukamaran’s execution depended on the outcome of Chan’s clemency bid.
He said because Sukamaran and Chan committed the crime together, they must be executed together, and the date of Sukamaran’s execution depended on whether Chan received clemency.
Julian McMahon, the Australian lawyer for Chan and Sukumaran, had called for the decision on Chan’s clemency to be indefinitely delayed.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott had written to the Indonesian president asking him to show mercy to the two men, saying there was evidence they were genuinely remorseful.
“I don’t want to pre-empt what may or may not happen afterwards, but I think these two are well and truly reformed characters and I hope the Indonesians will accept that, acknowledge it,” he said.
“I hope that the evidence of genuine remorse, of genuine rehabilitation, means that even at this late stage pleas for clemency might be accepted.”
However, Mr Abbott said he would not let the case of the two men affect the relationship between the two countries.
This article originally appeared on ABC News, and has been republished here with full permission.
Top Comments
Firing squad?? Are you serious? Couldn't their deaths be at least a little more humane? This is totally barbaric :(
It's counter-productive to call the Indonesians' choice barbaric. Their country, their laws.
I think the death penalty itself is barbaric but if you are going to be executed this is probably the way to go. Quick and no chance of stuffing it up the way the Americans do with not find a vein for lethal injection or getting the dose wrong and having the executee suffer in pain as their heart is paralysed. I also think if you decide to execute people you should do it in a way that acknowledges you are killing them - a lot of the things that go wrong with lethal injection are due to the complicated procedure which is designed not to stop suffering but to make the sight easier to cope with for participants and observers. A proper hanging is also very humane but needs to be done by a skilled practitioner and there may not be anyone on earth who knows how to do a proper hanging anymore - it took the Victorians many years to get it right.
I agree that the death penalty is barbaric, but I wouldn't say that the firing squad is the most humane with less chance of suffering. there are many instances where they aren't killed straight away. As for the lethal injection, I was not aware that that it was designed to not stop suffering, but to make it easier to watch. I do know that the European country that the USA got one of the three drugs that make up the lethal injection stopped supplying them with it, because the drugs purpose that they intended, was not to assist killing. The drugs that they usa use now, aren't as effective with botched executions, but that could be as you were saying, it doesn't look peaceful to the people witnessing. Interesting.
Counter productive maybe, but true!
I wonder how well Mick Kelty is sleeping at the moment.
Why? The Bali 9 were well aware of the penalties if they were caught. If they had successfully smuggled those drugs into Australia, how many Aussies would have suffered and died for the Bali 9's financial gain?
Not to mention how many Aussies already suffered and died from the previous times they smuggled heroin and got away with it....