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Thread: Bali Nine

  1. #51
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    Australia wants claims against Indonesian judges probed before executions

    CANBERRA, Australia (AP) – Australia wants corruption allegations against Indonesian judges investigated before their death sentences against two Australian drug traffickers are carried out, the foreign minister said Monday.

    The Australians, Myuran Sukumaran, 33, and Andrew Chan, 31, are among 10 drug traffickers who were given 72-hour notices over the weekend that they will be executed by a firing squad.

    Indonesian authorities say that the Australians have exhausted all avenues of appeal.

    But Foreign Minister Julie Bishop argued that the men should not be executed while they have an unresolved case before Indonesia's Constitutional Court and while Indonesia's Judicial Commission investigates claims of corruption in the pair's original trial.

    According to Australia's Fairfax Media, Sukumaran and Chan's original Indonesian lawyer, Muhammad Rifan, says the trial judges originally asked for a 1 million rupiah ($77,000) bribe to pass sentences of less than 20 years.

    Rifan alleged that the deal fell through after the judges later said that they had been ordered by senior legal and government figures to impose the death penalty.

    Rifan said the judges then "started asking for a lot more money" to provide a lesser sentence, but the pair did not have any more money, Fairfax Media reported Monday.

    Rifan could not be immediately contacted for comment Monday.

    The pair were sentenced to death in February 2006 for their leading roles in an Australian smuggling group dubbed the Bali Nine. They were arrested in 2005 after a tip-off from Australian police while trying to smuggle more than 18 pounds of heroin from Bali to Sydney. The rest were sentenced to prison terms.

    Sukumaran and Chan have provided sworn statements to the Judicial Commission, which safeguards the probity of judges, Fairfax Media reported.

    Foreign Minister Bishop said she contacted her Indonesian counterpart, Retno Marsudi, on Sunday night in a bid to prevent the executions. She said the Australians should not be killed while two legal cases were outstanding.

    "There have been some allegations made in relation to the trial and I said that Australia, indeed the international community, would expect those legal processes to be concluded before any other action was taken," Bishop told reporters in Sydney of her conversation with Marsudi.

    "I would anticipate that both proceedings -- the Constitutional Court proceedings and the Judicial Commission -- would require to hear evidence. I would anticipate that they would need to hear evidence from Mr. Chan and Mr. Sukumaran, and therefore, my request that these proceedings be allowed to continue and that there be a stay of execution," she said.

    Bishop and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott continued to lobby Indonesia on Monday, saying it was not too late for Indonesia to have a change of heart.

    Authorities have asked the two Australians, the four Nigerian men, a Filipino woman, and one man each from Brazil, France and Indonesia for their last wish and gave them a 72-hour notice of their executions, a spokesman for the Indonesian attorney general, Tony Spontana, said Sunday.

    He said the legal options of nine of them have been exhausted, while Frenchman Serge Atlaoui still has an outstanding legal complaint over the procedure followed in his request for clemency. Spontana said he expects the Supreme Court to rule on it Monday.

    The 72-hour notice indicates the executions by firing squad in Besi prison on Nusakambangan Island will be carried out at the earliest on Tuesday or Wednesday.

    Philippine President Benigno Aquino III appealed to Jokowi on Monday to spare Filipino drug convict Mary Jane Veloso's life in a meeting on the sidelines of an annual summit of Southeast Asian leaders in Malaysia. Jokowi "was sympathetic" and promised to respond to Aquino's appeal later Monday after consulting with Indonesia's attorney general, Aquino spokesman Herminio Coloma told reporters.

    Filipino boxing champion Manny Pacquiao also appealed to Jokowi to spare Veloso's life.

    "I am begging and knocking at your kind heart that your excellency will grant executive clemency to her by sparing her life and saving her from execution," Pacquiao said in a live interview from Los Angeles with Philippine network GMA News.

    Abbott wrote to Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo over the weekend on the Australians' behalf.

    "This is not in the best interests of Indonesia, let alone the best interests of the young Australians concerned," Abbott told reporters in France.

    U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Widodo on Sunday to "urgently consider declaring a moratorium on capital punishment in Indonesia, with a view toward abolition."

    Source

  2. #52
    Senior Member Member FLMetfan's Avatar
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    Bali nine pair Chan and Sukumaran choose their execution witnesses

    The families of Bali nine pair Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan have received the news they were dreading - they will be forced to say their final farewells on Tuesday afternoon.

    The Australians have put in a request for the spiritual advisers who will be alone with them in their final hours before death.

    Sukumaran has asked long-time friend and supporter Christie Buckingham, a senior pastor from Melbourne's Bayside Church, who has been visiting both men for years.

    Chan has nominated Salvation Army minister and family friend David Soper.

    They also have the harrowing role of bearing witness at their executions.

    Indonesian authorities will need to approve their requests.

    The men's Indonesian lawyer, Leonard Arpan, said prosecutors had informed them they must leave Nusakambangan, known as death island, for the last time about 2pm.

    If the first round of bullets does not kill them, they will be shot in the head by a Brimob commander.

    How executions are carried out:

    Prisoners are executed by firing squad, recruited from a special unit of the national police.

    Recruits for the firing squad are chosen based on their marksmanship and "physical and spiritual health". They are given counselling before and after executions.

    Inmates are moved into isolation cells 72 hours before execution.

    Families and religious counsellors are allowed visits up to a few hours before execution.

    Prisoners are given the choice to stand, kneel or sit before the firing squad, and to be blindfolded. Their hands and feet are tied.

    Each prisoner has 12 marksmen aiming rifles at his or her heart. Only three of the 12 have live ammunition in their weapons. Authorities say this is so that the executioner remains unidentified.

    Medical personnel are on site to pronounce the prisoner dead after execution.

    Bodies are cleaned and handed over to families, who wait outside the prison during the execution.

    Men will be tied to wooden planks in a field and shot about midnight.

    Chan and Sukumaran have conveyed simple last wishes.

    Sukumaran, whose most recent haunting self-portrait featured a black hole over his heart and two lines of blood, wants to paint for as long as possible.

    Chan's last wish is to go to church with his family in his final days.

    Both Australians also yearn to get out of their isolation cells on Besi prison, which means "iron prison", and walk around in the fresh air.

    A source, who visited one of the nine condemned men and woman on Sunday, described the humiliation as the prisoners were brought out of their cells still handcuffed.

    Tears flowed as they tried to hug family members while their hands were still shackled.

    Eventually a guard unlocked the cuffs.

    In a further distressing scene, nine coffins were delivered to the police station in Cilacap on Sunday night.

    Cilacap police chief Ulung Sampurna Jaya said 1203 joint personnel would be securing the executions.

    The diplomatic fallout has begun with former Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono cancelling a three-day trip to Perth.

    He was scheduled to speak at the In the Zone Asian leadership forum at the University of Western Australia on Friday.

    "It still doesn't have to be this way," a tearful Chinthu, Sukumaran's brother, said.

    Chan's brother Michael said Indonesian President Joko Widodo was the only person who could save their lives now.

    Earlier this year, the Revered Buckingham told Fairfax Media that the day the Bali nine were arrested in Denpasar in 2005 with 8.3 kilograms of heroin, she wrote in her prayer diary: "How dumb can you get and still breathe? Nevertheless Lord, show your mercy."

    Little did she know that a decade later she would be asked to provide spiritual guidance to Sukumaran in his last hours.

    For more than three years, Mrs Buckingham and her husband Rob regularly travelled to Bali's Kerobokan prison to visit the men and tirelessly campaigned for their lives to be saved.

    "We've never actually seen people so totally reformed," she told Fairfax in January. "They're like us now. They weren't. They are now. If you knew them, you would not execute them. I can't even bear the thought."

    As unbearable as the thought is, if the Indonesian authorities give their permission, she will be there for Sukumaran for his final moments on earth.

    On Monday afternoon, the men's Indonesian lawyer, Professor Todung Mulya Lubis, said they were enjoying spending time with their families, sharing food and stories.

    "They are still very optimistic, upbeat and cheerful," he said after a visit on Nusakambangan.

    Another of Sukumaran's paintings was brought back from Besi prison on Monday.

    Sukumaran told Professor Mulya he was painting his feelings. He said he was also aware of the others in a similar situation to him on death row.
    "I am the warden! Get your warden off this gurney and shut up! You are not in America. This is the island of Barbados. People will see you doing this." Monty Delk's last words.

  3. #53
    Senior Member Member FLMetfan's Avatar
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    Nine face midnight firing squad in Indonesia, hopes for reprieve gone

    (Reuters) - Nine drug traffickers held emotional farewell meetings with their families at an Indonesian prison on Tuesday, after Jakarta rejected last-ditch pleas from around the world for clemency and ordered their mass execution to proceed within hours.

    "I won't see him again," said Raji Sukumaran, the mother of an Australian who will go before a firing squad along with a fellow countryman and convicts from Nigeria, Brazil, the Philippines and Indonesia.

    "They're going to take him at midnight and shoot him. I'm asking the government not to kill him. Please don't kill him today," she told reporters, weeping as she spoke.

    Hundreds of people began gathering in cities across Australia for vigils for Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, holding placards and calling for Australia to respond strongly to its neighbor if the executions proceed.

    The death penalties have been condemned by the United Nations, and strained ties between Australia and Indonesia.

    Security at the high-security prison on an island off the Central Java coast was heightened on Tuesday. Religious counselors, doctors and the firing squad were alerted to start final preparations for the execution, and a dozen ambulances, some carrying white satin-covered coffins, were seen arriving.

    Amid chaotic scenes outside the jail, a member of one of the Australian's family collapsed and was carried through the crowd.

    "I saw today something that no other family should ever have to go through. Nine families inside a prison saying goodbye to their loved ones," said Chan's brother, Michael. "It's torture."

    TWELVE MARKSMEN FOR EACH PRISONER

    Indonesian authorities have declined to specify a time for the executions, which are due to take place at a nearby clearing in a forest, but the last time a group of drug traffickers were executed earlier this year it was carried out at midnight.

    The prisoners will be given the choice to stand, kneel or sit before the firing squad, and to be blindfolded. Their hands and feet will be tied.

    Twelve marksmen are assigned to fire at the heart of each prisoner, but only three have live ammunition. Authorities say this is so that the executioner remains unidentified.

    Philippine President Benigno Aquino said on Tuesday that he had made one last appeal to the Indonesian government to spare a Filipina among the nine, arguing that she could be a vital witness in prosecuting drug syndicates.

    "She does present an opportunity right now to be able to uncover all the participants and start the process of bringing them to the bars of justice," Aquino told reporters in Malaysia, where he was attending a meeting of Southeast Asian leaders.

    Mary Jane Veloso, a mother of two, was arrested in 2010 after she arrived in Indonesia with 2.6 kg of heroin hidden in her suitcase.

    Veloso's lawyers filed a human trafficking complaint recently against another Filipina, Maria Cristina Sergio, who they allege promised the death-row inmate a job as a domestic worker in Indonesia but instead led her to become a drug mule.

    Sergio voluntarily surrendered to police in the Philippines on Tuesday, seeking protection after receiving death threats via her social media accounts and mobile phone.

    "I'd say it's a changing alibi," Indonesia's attorney-general, H.M. Prasetyo, told reporters.

    "Now she says she's a victim of human trafficking. I think these are just efforts to delay the execution. We have given her all legal avenues. Don't force us to change. If we're not firm, it means we're weak in the war against drugs."

    Filipino boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao, who is in the United States for a title fight, made a televised appeal to Indonesian President Joko Widodo on behalf of his countrywoman, Veloso: "I am begging and knocking on your kind heart that your excellency will grant executive clemency to her."

    AUSTRALIA: "THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES"

    Authorities on Monday granted Australian Chan's last wish, which was to marry his Indonesian girlfriend at the prison.

    But they rebuffed last-minute appeals from Australia to save the lives of Sukumaran and Chan, who were arrested in 2005 as the ringleaders of a plot to smuggle heroin out of Indonesia.

    The pending executions have strained Indonesia's relations with Australia, Nigeria and Brazil, which will likely worsen after the death sentences are carried out.

    Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told ABC television: "Should these executions proceed in the manner that I anticipate, of course, there will have to be consequences."

    Australia-Indonesia relations have been tested in recent years by disputes over people smuggling and spying. In late 2013 Indonesia recalled its envoy and froze military and intelligence cooperation over reports that Canberra had spied on top Indonesian officials, including the former president's wife.

    Indonesia has harsh punishments for drug crimes and resumed executions in 2013 after a five-year gap. Six have been executed so far this year.

    Widodo's steadfastness on the executions, which has strong public support at home, stands in contrast to a series of policy flip-flops since he took office six months ago. Palace insiders and government officials portray him as sometimes out of his depth and struggling to get around entrenched vested interests.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/...0NI2F820150428
    "I am the warden! Get your warden off this gurney and shut up! You are not in America. This is the island of Barbados. People will see you doing this." Monty Delk's last words.

  4. #54
    Senior Member Member FLMetfan's Avatar
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    There are reports coming through that Christine Buckingham and David Soper, the Christian ministers chosen by Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran to comfort them in their last moments before the faced the firing squad, have arrived at Cilacap port.

    The pair were originally told that they would not be able to see the ministers of their choice, but Channel 7’s Rob Scott says the Indonesian government has relented on that score.

    Sukumaran’s mother, Raji, told the media earlier tonight that her son would be executed at midnight. It’s just gone 8pm local time.
    "I am the warden! Get your warden off this gurney and shut up! You are not in America. This is the island of Barbados. People will see you doing this." Monty Delk's last words.

  5. #55
    Senior Member Member FLMetfan's Avatar
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    The Guardian Live update

    Our reporter in Cilacap, Dina Indrasafitri, says cars have begun arriving at the gate to the crossing to Nusa Kambangan Island.

    The past 10 to 15 minutes saw a number of cars entering the gate leading to the crossing, carrying a number of figures with close relationships with those facing the death penalty. Among them were representatives from Australia, relatives and significant others, including close friend of Raheem Agbaje, priest Romo Carolus, legal activists defending Rodrigo Gularte. The cars dropped them off and turned back.
    "I am the warden! Get your warden off this gurney and shut up! You are not in America. This is the island of Barbados. People will see you doing this." Monty Delk's last words.

  6. #56
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    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  7. #57
    Senior Member Member FLMetfan's Avatar
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    Nine death row prisoners face execution within hours

    It now looks almost certain that death row prisoners imprisoned on Indonesia’s Nusa Kambangan Island will face the firing squad tonight.

    They are Rodrigo Gularte, from Brazil; Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso, from the Philippines; Martin Anderson (aka Belo), Raheem Agbaje Salami, Sylvester Obiekwe Nwolise and Okwudili Oyatanze, from Nigeria; Zainal Abidin bin Mgs Mahmud Badarudin, from Indonesia; and Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, from Australia.

    Here’s what we know:
    Indonesian Attorney-General H.M. Prasetyo has confirmed that the executions of nine death row inmates on Nusa Kambangan Island, including Australians Chan and Sukumaran and Filipina woman Veloso, will go ahead tonight.

    Sukumaran’s mother, Raji, told reporters at Cilacap on Tuesday afternoon that her son would be killed “at midnight.” That accords with suggestions from the Indonesian Government, but Prasetyo has refused to name a time.

    The families of Chan and Sukumaran have made heartfelt pleas to Indonesian President Joko Widodo to spare their loved ones lives and calling for a moratorium on the death penalty, with Michael Chan describing leaving his brother for the last time as “torture”.

    Christie Buckingham and David Soper, the nominated spiritual counsellors of Sukumaran and Chan, arrived at Nusa Kambangan Island about 8pm local time, along with other spiritual advisors like Romo Carolus, a local priest who is known to attend death row prisoners. Ambulances carrying coffins arrived earlier on Tuesday.

    Veloso’s execution appears likely to go ahead despite an appeal by Philippine President Benigno Aquino, who said she was a vital witness in a pending drug trafficking trial. Veloso’s lawyers have long maintained she acted as an unknowing mule to drug smugglers when she was arrested with 2kg heroin in 2010 and Maria Cristina Sergio, the woman who allegedly recruited her, reportedly handed herself into Philippine authorities on Tuesday.

    Laywers for Brazillian man Rodrigo Gularte have filed a last-minute appeal, saying he was denied procedural fairness in his clemency application.

    French prisoner Serge Areski Atlaoui has been given a temporary reprieve.
    The European Union and Australian and French governments have issued a joint plea urging President Widodo to “forgive” the death row prisoners and supporting the UN Secretary Genera’s statement, where he asked Indonesia to “urgently consider declaring a moratorium on the death penalty in Indonesia.”

    Australian foreign minister, Julie Bishop, has said there would be “consequences” for Indonesia if the executions go ahead, but she said, “I fear that this execution will proceed.”

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/liv...ndonesia-mercy
    "I am the warden! Get your warden off this gurney and shut up! You are not in America. This is the island of Barbados. People will see you doing this." Monty Delk's last words.

  8. #58
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Indonesia’s Attorney General HM Prasetyo has announced the executions of Chan, Sukumaran and seven other prisoners will take place after midnight on Nusakambangan Island.

    This is the first time the government has confirmed the executions, after days of speculation.

    http://www.news.com.au/world/bali-ni...-1227325723492
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  9. #59
    Senior Member Member FLMetfan's Avatar
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    Reporters at Cilacap port, from where ferries cross to the island prison of Nusa Kambangan, say the mood is becoming increasingly sombre as midnight approaches there.

    We are also hearing that Indonesian television is reporting that the prisoners are currently being moved from their cells to the execution site, though this hasn’t been confirmed.
    "I am the warden! Get your warden off this gurney and shut up! You are not in America. This is the island of Barbados. People will see you doing this." Monty Delk's last words.

  10. #60
    Senior Member Member FLMetfan's Avatar
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    Rappler Indonesia has published what it says is the order of executions.

    The Guardian has not been able to verify this.
    Myuran Sukumaran
    Andrew Chan
    Mary Jane Veloso
    Martin Anderson
    Sylvester Obiekwe Nwolise
    Rodrigo Gularte
    Raheem Agbaje Salami
    Okwudily Oyantze
    Zaenal Abidin
    "I am the warden! Get your warden off this gurney and shut up! You are not in America. This is the island of Barbados. People will see you doing this." Monty Delk's last words.

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