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Death row inmates Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan stand in a grim line of nearly 90 Australians who have faced a possible death sentence overseas in the past 30 years.
1/3, or 28, of the 87 Australians arrested abroad for capital crimes were sentenced to execution. Only 16 were acquitted or had the charges dropped, while drug trafficker David McMillan managed to escape Thailand's Klong Prem prison in 1996 before he could be tried.
Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia handed down the most death sentences, while Malaysia and Singapore are the only countries to have executed Australians since mid-last century.
Indonesian lawyers for Sukumaran and Chan will lodge a 2nd request for judicial review this week. If rejected, the Sydney men will become the 5th and 6th Australians to be executed since 1967, the year of Australia's last execution, the hanging of Ronald Ryan.
19 of the 28 death sentences were later commuted to jail terms. At least 3 Australians - Chan, Sukumaran, and Pham Trung Dung in Vietnam - remain on death row, while four others arrested last year, await sentencing.
The fate of Harry Chhin, who received a suspended death sentence in 2005 in China, remains unknown. His case was set for review in 2007, but his status, in a country that regards prisoner executions as a state secret, is unknown.
Only 1 death row inmate, Donald Tait, has managed to escape execution by having his Thai verdict overturned.
Of those arrested overseas for capital crimes, 9 in 10 were detained for drug offences. The smallest amount was carried by Aaron Cohen, who was sentenced to life in a Malaysian prison in 1985 after being caught with 34 grams of heroin. Cohen, who was 19 when arrested and reportedly born a heroin addict, was detained with his mother Lorraine. She was sentenced to death. Both were pardoned in 1996.
The youngest, Gordon Vuong, was only 16 when he was sentenced to 13 years in a Cambodian jail in 2005. The oldest, an unnamed 71-year-old woman, was arrested in Vietnam allegedly with 2.8 kg of heroin in December last year.
The NSW Council for Civil Liberties considered the death penalty "barbaric", said president Stephen Blanks.
"Every criminal is entitled - even the worst murderers, the worst drug dealers - to the opportunity to reform themselves."
The number of Australians arrested overseas each year has tripled in the past 20 years, mirroring a rise in travel overseas, figures from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade show.
In 2014, nearly 370 Australians were imprisoned overseas and more than 1200 Australians were arrested while abroad.
Source: Sydney Morning Herald, January 25, 2015
