A lawyer for two Australian drug smugglers on death row in Indonesia has launched yet another bid to save the pair from the firing squad, despite the country’s attorney-general declaring they’ve already exhausted all legal options.
The appeal, filed in Indonesia’s Constitutional Court on Thursday, comes just days after a separate court dismissed an earlier challenge brought by Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.
The ringleaders of the so-called “Bali Nine” drug trafficking gang were sentenced to death in 2006 for trying to smuggle heroin out of Indonesia and face imminent execution.
Inneke Kusuma, a lawyer for the Australian pair, said this latest appeal challenges a ruling that prevents foreigners having their cases reviewed in the Constitutional Court. It also calls for President Joko Widodo to give a clear reason why he rejected Chan and Sukumaran’s appeals for clemency, she added.
She said the legal team hoped the government would wait until the court proceedings were complete, a process that could take “several months”. “I think with our effort we can show them, tell them, persuade them,” she told reporters at the court. “If the constitutional court accepts what we have lodged, maybe there will be a new mechanism for considering clemency.”
But Indonesia’s Attorney-General Muhammad Prasetyo earlier this week said nothing would delay the executions, accusing the Australians’ legal team of “playing with justice”. “The legal process is already done,” he said. “This proves that they are simply trying to buy time.”
The Australians’ legal team has mounted several attempts to halt the executions.
On Monday the State Administrative Court in Jakarta upheld a decision that it does not have the authority to hear a challenge to Widodo’s rejection of the Australians’ pleas for clemency, which is typically the final chance to avoid execution.
They are expected to be executed soon along with other drug convicts, including foreigners from France, Brazil, the Philippines, Nigeria and Ghana.
Jakarta has said it will wait for all legal appeals to be resolved before putting the group to death at the same time. Some other convicts have lodged Supreme Court appeals, which could take weeks to resolve.
Story and photo by AFP
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