Indonesia: Executions Imminent for Foreigners Convicted of Smuggling
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Version 0 of 1. Two Australians are among eight convicted drug smugglers who will be transferred this week to the prison island of Nusa Kambangan for imminent execution, an official said Monday. Indonesia’s president, Joko Widodo, has rejected repeated appeals by Australia’s government for clemency for its citizens, Andrew Chan, 31, and Myuran Sukumaran, 33, the ringleaders of a group arrested in 2005 for trying to smuggle about 18 pounds of heroin to Australia. The other members of the group, known as the Bali Nine, have received sentences ranging from 20 years to life. In Australia, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Monday, “I feel sick in the pit of my stomach when I think about what is quite possibly happening to these youngsters.” He said his government had been trying to appeal to Indonesia’s sense of itself as a stable democracy under the rule of law. Also set to face a firing squad are men from France, Brazil, Ghana, Nigeria and Indonesia, and a woman from the Philippines, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office said, without giving exact dates. |