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| Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran |
One of the prison guards who monitors Bali 9-death row drug smuggler Myuran Sukumaran has revealed he prays the Australian is spared the firing squad.
Sukumaran and fellow Bali 9 member Andrew Chan are in Kerobokan Prison awaiting a decision on their pleas for clemency - their final chance at beating the death penalty for their role in smuggling 8.2kg of heroin from Bali to Australia.
Hermanus, who goes by 1 name, is the guard in charge of the workshop at the jail where the 2 Australians have set up a series of educational and rehabilitation programs.
He has worked in the prison system for 28 years and says he has never met a prisoner like 32-year-old Sukumaran. He prays that he gets off death row.
Hermanus says everyone in the workshop hopes Sukumaran and Chan are granted clemency.
"In 28 years I have never had a prisoner like him. He is the best person I have seen in my career. He can move people who before didn't do anything and now they have become creative and disciplined," Hermanus said.
It can also be revealed that Chan was dispatched to counsel British grandmother Lindsay Sandiford after she was sentenced to death earlier this year in a case that attracted worldwide attention.
When Sandiford was sentenced to the firing squad for drug trafficking she sank into a deep depression and refused to come out of her cell.
Jail Governor Ngurah Wiratna sent Chan to her cell, in the women's block to counsel her and calm her down.The 28-year-old told her that while she might want to die or curl up in a little ball that she had to think of her family and that she still had a lot of legal avenues to go through.
He tried to calm her down and to hold onto her faith and her family.
It is not known when Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will make a decision on the men's clemency pleas.
Source: Daily Telegraph, May 3, 2013
