August 16, 2007 07:00am
Article from: AAP
DEFENCE lawyer says Indonesia's Supreme Court could still save three members of the Bali Nine heroin ring, despite a panel of judges recommending that their death penalties be upheld.
Three judges from the Denpasar District Court have advised the Supreme Court to reject a last-ditch appeal by Australian drug smugglers Matthew Norman, 20, Si Yi Chen, 22, and Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, 23. But the men's lawyer Farhat Abbas says the Supreme Court is under no obligation to follow the lower court's opinion.
A decision on the appeal is not expected for several weeks. "The decision-makers are the judges at the Supreme Court,'' Abbas said. "The opinion from the District Court has nothing to do with the case because they can only hear it, but they cannot make a decision."The judge overseeing the case in Denpasar's District Court, Martin Bidara, agreed, saying the Supreme Court had made different rulings to the District Court in past cases.
In emotional appeals to the Denpasar District Court in June, the three finally admitted their roles in the failed bid to smuggle heroin from Bali to Australia.
The District Court judges said they would leave the personal appeals for the Supreme Court to consider. They rejected other arguments made by lawyers for the three.
The appeal is the trio's final bid to beat the death penalty, other than an appeal to Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for clemency.
Three others facing the death penalty - Scott Rush and ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran - have also launched challenges, arguing Indonesia's Constitutional Court should scrap the death penalty because the nation's constitution affords life as a basic right. The case is scheduled to resume in Jakarta next week.
