Bali 9 families tell their stories

The nights are the worst, say the families of the Bali Nine ringleaders, clinging to hope as their loved ones launch final appeals against their death sentences.

Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran are two of nine young Australians arrested on April 17, 2005, in Denpasar over an attempt to smuggle more than eight kilograms of heroin from Indonesia to Australia.

Another - Scott Rush - also is facing the death penalty, while the other six were given sentences of 20 years in jail or life imprisonment.

Chan and Sukumaran have had previous appeals rejected.

If their appeals to the Supreme Court fail, their last resort is a bid for clemency from Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, which is unlikely to be granted.

Their families say sleep comes hard - as they think of what might await their loved ones.

"The nights are the worst time, when I go to bed," Sukumaran's mother Rajini has told the ABC TV program Compass.

"I just can't (sleep), I just lie there and think about all these things.

"Then I start praying ... and then I fall asleep after a long time."

It's even worse after visiting him in Kerobokan Prison.

"When you go there ... you go with such a positive attitude ... and you start to realise we're going to a prison and it's just really hard," his sister Brintha says.

His brother Chinthu says nothing can undue what the family has experienced.

"The whole thing has changed me," he says.

"The way I see it is that ... life before this happened, it'll never be that again.

"Even if everything changed and he came back tomorrow."

Chan's brother Michael says his sibling stopped going to church years ago, but in prison he is "looking back to his faith ... and I think that's carrying him a long way right now".

"When I do go visit him it is more about, you know, footie scores - the sport.

"I can ask him how his day has been, but you know it could be Groundhog Day - everything is pretty much the same for him in prison."

Melbourne barrister Julian McMahon, a member of Chan and Sukumaran's legal team, says the families remain in limbo.

They were sentenced to death at their trial and twice more on separate appeals - but their fight is not over.

"They're not allowed to grieve because no one has died," Mr McMahon tells Compass.

"They're not allowed to move on because there's hope that they might be able to save the person who is on death row.

"So they can't go forward, they can't go back - they're just stuck in the grey zone."

Source: 9new.com.au, March 20, 2009

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