THREE of the Bali Nine have had their death sentences reduced to life imprisonment.

Three of the Bali Nine convicted of heroin smuggling have had their death sentences reduced to life imprisonment.

The trio of Matthew Norman, whose mother lived in Port Macquarie, Si Yi Chen and Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen have had their lives spared by three judges in Indonesia's highest court, the Supreme Court in Jakarta.

Court documents and an interview with one of the judges revealed the trio's previous good character and youth played a major role in the decision to grant them mercy.

The three had launched a final appeal, known as a judicial review, or PK, claiming the court which had increased their sentence from 20 years to the death penalty was in error.

They said the prosecutors in their cases had never demanded or recommended death for their crimes.

Judge Hakim Nyak Pha said there had been "intense discussion" about what penalty was appropriate.

"If they had been recidivists there would have been no mercy for them," Judge Pha said.

"It's not their job. They are not masterminds and they are not earning their money from smuggling."

The decision came after the three expressed profound remorse for getting involved in drug smuggling and apologised to the court for their stupidity.

Norman, Chen and Nguyen were known as the Melasti Three because they were arrested at the Melasti hotel in Bali on April 17, 2005.

None of the three had drugs on them at the time, but police found 350g of heroin in a suitcase in their hotel room.

The decision means there are now three Bali Nine members remaining on death row. They are yet to lodge their own judicial reviews against the death penalty.

Norman, Chen and Nguyen were originally sentenced to life in jail at their first trial at Denpasar District Court in Bali.

The next court then cut the sentence to 20 years.

The three were then given the death penalty after the prosecution appealed the decision in August 2006.

The full text of Wednesday's Supreme Court decision has not yet been completed or released, but a document setting out the decision has been sent to Denpasar.

It says the three are legally and convincingly guilty of the organised crime of exporting first-class narcotics and says that each prisoner is "punished with the life sentence".

Still on death row are the Bali Nine's so-called ringleaders , Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, and Scott Rush, one of the four couriers caught with 8.2kg of heroin.

Source : Port Macquarie News

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