Abbott: Australia tried to stop 2 executions in Indonesia

[webfact]

Leader: Australia tried to stop 2 executions in Indonesia
ROD McGUIRK, Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia's prime minister on Thursday said his government had done everything it could to save the lives of two Australian heroin traffickers on death row in Indonesia.

Myuran Sukumaran, 33, and Andrew Chan, 31, learned this week that their applications for judicial reviews of their death sentences have been rejected.

Australia, which has abolished capital punishment, had backed the pairs' failed application to Indonesian President Joko Widodo for clemency.

"We're not going to engage in last-minute megaphone diplomacy, but I just want to assure people that the Australian government has left no stone unturned to try to ensure that these two Australians on death row have their sentences commuted," Prime Minister Tony Abbott told reporters.

Indonesia said this week it was preparing to execute by firing squad eight drug smugglers, including the two Australians.

The pair were the ringleaders of a group of nine Australians who were arrested in 2005 for attempting to smuggle 8.3 kilograms (18.3 pounds) of heroin to Australia from the tourist island of Bali.

The group has been dubbed the "Bali Nine" by Australian media. All have been convicted of drug smuggling but only two were sentenced to death.

The pair's Australian lawyer, Julian McMahon, said Australian police tipped off the Indonesian police who made the arrests. Therefore the Indonesians should grant Australia's request to spare their lives.

"The fact that the Australian police are involved should actually be of great assistance to my clients now as leverage in dealing with the Indonesian authorities, but it looks like that's not working," McMahon told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio on Thursday.

McMahon said the Indonesian Supreme Court should uphold a Constitutional Court ruling that prisoners who are rehabilitated after spending a decade on death row should have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment.

"If the merits of that case were looked at, my clients would not be executed," McMahon said.

"Unfortunately they are being caught up in a bigger debate which starts with the headline: we're going to kill 64 people on death row if they've been convicted of drugs" offenses, he said.

Lawyers were continuing to investigate legal options to save the Australians' lives, McMahon said.

"There's no doubt the situation is bleak," he said.

Indonesia has extremely strict drug laws. On Jan. 18, it executed six drug convicts including foreigners from Brazil, Malawi, Nigeria, the Netherlands and Vietnam, brushing aside last-minute appeals by foreign leaders.

More than 130 people are on death row, including 57 drug convicts and two convicted terrorists.

-- (c) Associated Press 2015-02-05

[bushmill]

Everybody who goes to Indonesia knows the law. They offended it and they get caught and facing now the consequences . What the <deleted> problem.

[CockneyGit]

If you're going to do the crime then suffer the consequences.

Everyone knows the laws in this part of the world. If you don't understand all this then maybe it's better you're taken out of the gene pool anyway..!!

[samran]

Unfortunately for these two sods, Abbott is busy staving off his his own execution to try too hard with the Indons. Which as a good catholic he should be trying his hardest.

Edited February 5, 2015 by samran

[Scott]

An inflammatory post and replies have been removed.

Assuming that a country is 'not civilized' because it has the death penalty is inflammatory.

Inflammatory posts will be removed. The topic is about the PM's attempts to get the death penalty commuted.

[teddysbuttons]

Abbott is still trying to make brownie points off these two. What part of ' you traffic in drugs you die ' do some people not understand !

[TigerandDog]

their lawyer is an idiot. It's simple, do the crime and if you get caught cop it sweet. I'm an aussie and I don't thionk the Aussie govt should have tried to get them off at all. A recent survey in Australia showed that 52% of those surveyed agreed with the death penalty for drug trafficking. Their dumb lawyer has tried to argue in the press that the survey was unfair as it did not take into consideration whether they had reformed etc. What of of baloney Julian McMahon, they were guilty, and caught red handed in Indonesia (regardless of who tipped who off), and Indonesian law like Thailand and other Asian countries is the death penalty for drug smuggling. These guys should think themselves lucky they weren't executed way back when they were caught. The reality is they should have been well and truly 6 feet under by now.

[SinCityGr8One]

Lock and Load!

[natway09]

Mr Abbot, please tell your replacement to educate your dumb population, Don't do drugs....................

Problem solved

[Nemesis7]

They knew the consequences so its time to bare it.

[anfh]

As said before - bottom line is - don't smuggle drugs in countries with dear penalty . No excuses. Everyone knows Indonesia's position on this.

[Scott]

Off-topic post and replies removed.

[Tredz]

bullshit : MURDERER !!!!!!!!!!

[Wombat6]

Abbott is still trying to make brownie points off these two. What part of ' you traffic in drugs you die ' do some people not understand !

Exactly....I hope Abbott makes the same effort with the rehabilitation of victims of the poison these guys tried to bring into Australia. These guys on death row didn't give a toss about the harm they were doing to addicts/victims etc. They rolled the dice and lost !!

[Jackson86]

but they don't look australians... hmm.

[louse1953]

but they don't look australians... hmm.

Your right,they are not aboriginal.Your point is.....!!

[chooka]

Why do people support criminal drug traffickers? No sympathy for the victims who die from thier drugs, just sympathy for criminals. They knew exactly what they were doing and the consequences. Ready Aim Fire. More garbage taken out. Drug dealers and paedophiles lowest of the low.

[Doc46]

Clown Abbott stay out of this,,Adhere by the countries laws and you will have no problems,It is their law ,You clean you're own Stable.

[neverdie]

Why do people support criminal drug traffickers? No sympathy for the victims who die from thier drugs, just sympathy for criminals. They knew exactly what they were doing and the consequences. Ready Aim Fire. More garbage taken out. Drug dealers and paedophiles lowest of the low.

My only hope is they televise the execution.......popcorn and handclapper are ready.

Australia should take a leaf out of indos book and clear our fancy jails of grubs like this.....too much money being wasted on a.holes who don't deserve another day on the face of the earth.

The bleeding hearts don't realise that the druggies would stick them I a flash to get their next hit and the criminals behind the supply chains would run down an old lady If she got in their way.

Abbott, pull ur head in.

[moojar]

If these two, the ringleaders. had gotten away with the drug smuggling, they would be just two more cocky cashed-up bogans (CUBS) living in glitzy McMansions and arrogantly driving high-end Euro cars.

No sympathy.

[Cats4ever]

Interesting article for the hang em high people -

• Letters

Mr President, please do not kill our citizens

Date February 6, 2015 - 12:00AM

Robert Richter

It is Joko Widodo alone who will be responsible for the execution of two Australian men because only he can effectively pull or stay the triggers.

Your Excellency, Joko Widodo, President of the Republic of Indonesia.

It pains me to write this letter as someone who has loved Indonesia since my first visit in the early 1970s and having followed with joy and anticipation your accession to the presidency of the Republic.

Unlike the members of the firing squad who because of the enormity of what they do are not permitted to know which of them, with intent, deliberately put out a human life, you Mr President will know that it was you alone who will be responsible for the killing because you alone can effectively pull or stay the triggers: there can be no hiding behind reliance on legal process because yours is the discretion and you are the repository of ultimate mercy in Indonesia. It is not the courts which ultimately exercise that prerogative

It is obviously critical that any decision you make must be informed by clear and precise necessity. Not political necessity but moral imperatives.

Thus far, the principal reason advanced for withholding your grant of mercy has been that those about to be executed for drug trafficking cause thousands of deaths in your country and are to be treated as mass murderers. That reasoning may be attractive to some who voted for you, but it is a purely rhetorical metaphor and is entirely inappropriate and false.

The measure of inconsistency and fallacy is demonstrated by the fact that you do not indict – let alone try and execute – makers and traffickers in alcohol and tobacco products, which together bring about an immeasurably greater number of deaths in your country. If the metaphor had any validity, your firing squads would run out of ammunition; live or blank. Nor are all murderers in Indonesia executed. Commutations are common.

The fallacy is so much clearer when you consider the fate of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran because it is clear that their actions could not have harmed any of your people: the drugs were intended for Australia – the "victim" nation – and it is the intended victim who unequivocally asks you not to kill them.

This is neither the time nor place to debate the barbarity of capital punishment. I merely say that for its proponents to have any meaning in terms of deterrence, executions should be public and take the cruelest form. They should also take place with a swiftness that does not allow for any notion that you are killing someone who is no longer the person who committed the crime.

Otherwise notions of repentance, reformation and redemption can have no place in our conception of justice and humanity and the incarceration of an offender for years during which they have actually undergone a complete transformation of their spirit is no more than cruel and inhuman torture. Some American states still do it but the number of nations adhering to this policy is rapidly diminishing.

The measure of the indecency of what is about to happen in the case of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran unless you intervene, is the diffusion of responsibility by those associated with the killing; secrecy and random blank bullets being the handmaidens of shame. Bali does not want the blood to soak its soil so these two are to be secreted out and killed elsewhere.

You must be aware of the immeasurable punishment you would be inflicting on many innocents. The families of the condemned. Those who have witnessed the spiritual and moral resurrection of the two young men who 10 years ago acted in a way they now genuinely and demonstrably repudiate. The Australian officers who were responsible for assisting the Indonesian authorities allowing them to be apprehended in Bali rather than on their arrival in Australia where the heroin was destined. All the people who will be haunted by the chilling ritual of these deliberate killings.

We are all appalled at the barbarity of IS and yet they do it in the heat of a murderous religious passion. How much worse to see those who "know what they do" carry out a calculated, cold-blooded and deliberate killing.

I am not learned in the ways of the Koran but is not Allah the Merciful? Does not the Koran allow for the virtues of repentance, redemption and mercy? Are you not here on earth to show Allah's mercy when it is in your power to do so?

Those of us in Australia who love Indonesia had great hopes that your extraordinary nation will advance its rightful place as leader and powerhouse for good in the region. Please do not disappoint us by senseless killings. Indonesia has intervened in numerous instances where its citizens faced execution in foreign lands and has achieved mercy for its people.

Please do not kill our citizens. It is you alone at this stage who will be killing them, and for what? To demonstrate that an ignorant howl for blood will overcome mercy even when it has been earned?

Robert Richter QC, is former chairman of the Criminal Bar Association of Victoria, and former president of the Council for Civil Liberties. This is an open letter to Joko Widodo, the President of the Republic of Indonesia.

[neverdie]

It has been stated by the Indonesian Authorities that the 2 Australians WILL BE EXECUTED this month.

[Wombat6]

but they don't look australians... hmm.

The day of the Blonde haired suntanned Aussie stereotype disappeared 50 years ago.....have you been living under a rock. There are many nations that are multi-cultural now and Australia is one of them.

[OZEMADE]

Abbott as the Prime Minister and Julie Bishop as the Foreign Minister amongst other Politicians, politically have to be seen to be appealing as they have done, knowing the writing was on the wall for these two.

They were originally sentenced to death 10 yrs ago, it was only stopped because the then President stopped the death penalty while he was President.

The newly elected President, said as one of his election promises, was to reinstate the death penalty and he has done so keeping his promise to the people.

The families of both of these drug runners are making a last ditch appeal to the President and their solicitor is making one last go at their legal system.

The mother of one of two Australians on death row in Bali has made a passionate plea for her son's life in the countdown to his execution.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/26238321/bali-nine-lawyer-plans-last-minute-bid-to-halt-firing-squad/

[OZEMADE]

Abbott as the Prime Minister and Julie Bishop as the Foreign Minister amongst other Politicians, politically have to be seen to be appealing as they have done, knowing the writing was on the wall for these two.

They were originally sentenced to death 10 yrs ago, it was only stopped because the then President stopped the death penalty while he was President.

The newly elected President, said as one of his election promises, was to reinstate the death penalty and he has done so keeping his promise to the people.

The families of both of these drug runners are making a last ditch appeal to the President and their solicitor is making one last go at their legal system.

The mother of one of two Australians on death row in Bali has made a passionate plea for her son's life in the countdown to his execution.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/26238321/bali-nine-lawyer-plans-last-minute-bid-to-halt-firing-squad/

The last legal hope of the Bali nine ringleaders has failed.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/video/watch/26421020/bali-nine-duo-s-final-appeal-rejected/

[JingerBen]

but they don't look australians... hmm.

No they don't.

But neither does Tony Abbott... I've always thought he looked a lot like Howdy Doody.

[StasD]

one more evidence of anglo-saxxon world death

[samran]

one more evidence of anglo-saxxon world death

They got rid of apartheid in 1990 fella. No room for you master race types to hide now...

[krisb]

Think I'd try an escape attempt. Pay a guard or 2 to turn their backs.

It's been done before.