Indonesian vice president remarks suggest no clemency for Bali 9 members

Comments made by the attorney general’s office last week held that President Joko Widodo would remain “firm” with capital punishment sentences.

The office also reportedly said that five inmates on death row would be up for execution by the end of the year. Though the five prisoners weren’t named, the attorney general’s office did not list Bali as one of the prisons where the five are locked up—giving Australian death row inmates Lindsay Sandiford along with two members of the Bali Nine a sliver of hope. 

However, Indonesia’s Vice President has made further remarks that suggest drug prisoners on death row, including the Bali Nine, will ultimately have their request for clemency denied, reports news.com.AU.

When Yusuf Kalla made these remarks, he was reportedly speaking Wednesday in Jakarta after the opening of an ASEAN ministerial meeting on drugs.

The five death row inmates to be executed were reported to be three drug traffickers and two on murder charges. 

While a growing number of Jakarta governmental officials are calling for clemency to be denied and to press on with executions, the Law and Human Rights minister is anti-death penalty and Kerobokan Prison’s governor has gone on the record saying Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, the two members of the Australian drug smuggling convicts the Bali Nine, have been rehabilitated. 

However, at the end of the day, it’s up to Jokowi to make the call for clemency or execution. 

Photo: AFP

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