Families to visit Bali Nine pair for first time since move to prison island
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Version 0 of 1. The families of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran are to see the death row inmates for the first time in almost a week, since their long-dreaded move to the prison island of Nusa Kambangan. They are hopeful Chan’s prediction of his own fate, detailed in a letter to his 15-year-old self, is proved false. “Your family and your friends are heartbroken and your life will be ended by a firing squad,” he wrote in the letter, according to a report in Fairfax Media. “This happened to you because you thought taking drugs was cool. “Underneath, you’re not a bad person and drugs made you different.” Fairfax says the the letter was written before Chan left the island, suggested by his friend, the film-maker Malinda Rutter. The men are in limbo on the Central Java island after arriving last Wednesday in expectation of their imminent executions for their role in the Bali Nine heroin smuggling plot. Now, Jakarta has indicated it wishes to wait for the result of legal appeals of some of the 10 convicted drug traffickers ready for the firing squad. Visiting Nusa Kambangan on Monday will be Chan’s mother Helen and brother Michael, and Sukumaran’s parents Sam and Raji, siblings Brintha and Chintu and other relatives. Lawyers for the pair are preparing yet another appeal for clemency to be heard in an administrative court in Jakarta on Thursday. “The main promising thing for us is that they’re not dead,” lawyer Peter Morrissey told ABC radio on Monday. “The way some officials were talking, they should have been dead weeks ago.” A visitor to the island last week told reporters the Australians were in Besi prison, one of the island’s seven jails. They were in a block of four cells and couldn’t see each other but could talk to each other and a Nigerian death row convict in one of the other cells. She had met the Nigerian, Raheem Agbaje Salami, in a small garden, and described the mood there as “isolated”. The prime minister, Tony Abbott is meanwhile still waiting for a “final call” with Indonesia’s president over the fate of Chan, 31, and Sukumaran, 33. Joko Widodo has already taken calls from Abbott on the executions but this latest request hasn’t yet been arranged. In an interview with broadcaster al-Jazeera aired on Saturday, Jokowi, as he’s known, left the door open to abolishing the death penalty in Indonesia in the future. “The constitution and existing laws still allow [the death penalty] but in the future if it is necessary to change it and the people really want it, why not?” he said. The men must get 72 hours notice of their executions, but the attorney general’s department now won’t confirm if they will be go ahead in March. |