'Bali Nine' Drug Smuggler Andrew Chan Seeks Indonesian Clemency

Myuran Sukumaran (left)
Andrew Chan (right)

An Australian drug smuggler on death row in Indonesia has appealed for clemency from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a prison official said Sunday.

Andrew Chan, 28, lost a court appeal against his death sentence in June over a 2005 plot to smuggle eight kilograms (18 pounds) of heroin into Australia from the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

“Andrew Chan’s lawyer on Thursday submitted the clemency request to the president,” Kerobokan prison chief I Gusti Ngurah Wiratna told AFP, adding that last week was the deadline for his clemency request.

Chan was one of the so-called “Bali Nine” smuggling gang, two of whom are on death row. The rest are serving lengthy sentences including life terms.

Wiratna, head of the prison in Bali where Chan is an inmate, said that the basis of the appeal was Chan’s age, asking that the young convict be given a chance to live and reform.

Shortly after the June court decision, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Australia was strongly opposed to capital punishment and that she would try to have Chan’s sentence commuted.

Indonesia enforces stiff penalties, including life imprisonment and death, for drug trafficking.

Source: Agence France-Presse, May 13, 2012

Last chance for a 'new life'

Death-row ''Bali Nine'' inmate Andrew Chan has filed a plea for clemency with the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, to be saved from the firing squad.

Chan's lawyers have asked the President to grant the drug courier "a chance to have a new life".

Chan was found guilty of taking a leading role in the 2005 plot to use young couriers to smuggle eight kilograms of heroin from Bali to Australia.

Chan's Indonesian lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis told The Sun-Herald that the plea had been handed to the governor of Bali's Kerobokan prison, Gusti Ngurah Wiratna, in time for last Thursday's deadline.

The plea was based on the "very progressive" stance Indonesia had taken in adopting the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights into its constitution and its domestic law, according to one of Chan's Australian lawyers, Julian McMahon.

Kerobokan prison

It also emphasises that, in the seven years since he was imprisoned, Chan has reformed, becoming a Christian and taking a lead role in educating prisoners at Bali's Kerobokan jail.

"Everyone should be universally protected under the UN treaty … and Andrew is entitled to that protection," Mr Lubis said. "He has become a very religious person, he has become very considerate. He should be given a chance to have a new life."

Chan and fellow inmate Myuran Sukumaran are the only two of the so-called Bali Nine still facing the death penalty. Both lost their final legal appeal to the Indonesian Supreme Court a year ago.

Sukumaran's clemency plea will be filed in coming months, and Mr McMahon, who with Mr Lubis represents both men, said more details on Chan's plea would also be filed at that time.

Mr McMahon said Indonesia had not executed anyone since 2008, despite having 114 people on death row, including 43 foreigners.

In the meantime, many in the country had been horrified by the beheading in June last year of an Indonesian maid found guilty of murder in Saudi Arabia. A committee of eminent Indonesians had been formed to fight for the rights of Indonesians on death row in other countries.

"Indonesia is now proactively fighting to save the lives of its own citizens on death row in other countries, and we regard that as an important step for us," Mr McMahon said.

"We hope the forceful advocacy by Indonesia for its own citizens improves Andrew's chances, especially because of his determined rehabilitation."

However, Mr McMahon emphasised that the plea for clemency was not about the death penalty in general, it was about the penalty "in Andrew's case specifically".

Mr Lubis said it would be "fair and just" if the President granted clemency to Chan.

"The principle of criminal punishment is not an eye for an eye. The philosophy is to re-educate the people, to bring them back to society," he said.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald, May 13, 2012

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