Jakarta Court Dismisses Death Row Australians' Legal Challenge
An Indonesian court on Tuesday dismissed a bid by two Australian drug traffickers on death row to avoid execution by challenging the president's rejection of their pleas for clemency.
Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, the ringleaders of the so-called "Bali Nine" drug smuggling gang, were arrested for trying to traffic heroin out of Indonesia in 2005 and sentenced to death the following year.
Their appeals for presidential clemency, typically a death row convict's final chance of avoiding the firing squad, were recently rejected by Indonesian President Joko Widodo.
Widodo has been a vocal supporter of executing drug traffickers and insisted on Tuesday that foreign countries must not interfere in Indonesia's right to use the death penalty.
Indonesia is facing intense diplomatic pressure not just from Australia but also Brazil and France, whose citizens have also lost their appeals for clemency and are facing imminent execution.
Earlier, the Administrative Court in Jakarta dismissed the Australians' application to challenge the president's refusal to grant them clemency, a rare move that was seen as having little chance of success.
Rejecting Sukumaran's application, presiding Judge Hendro Puspito said: "Clemency is the prerogative of the president... the state administrative court has no right to rule on the challenge."
He also rejected Chan's application. The judge said the pair had 14 days to lodge an appeal, which their lawyers said they would do.
Widodo insisted that Jakarta would push ahead with the executions of the Australians and other foreigners on death row despite coming under intense international pressure.
He said that his message to other countries was: "Do not intervene in executions. This is Indonesia's judicial and political sovereignty."
Indonesia sparked a diplomatic storm in January when it executed six drug convicts, including five foreigners, prompting Brazil and the Netherlands -- whose citizens were among those executed -- to recall their ambassadors.
Authorities originally said the Australians would be put to death in February but last week announced their executions would be delayed by up to a month, insisting it was due to "technical reasons" and not sustained diplomatic pressure from Canberra.
The men's lawyers have launched a series of last-ditch legal moves in a bid to save the pair, both in their early 30s, from the firing squad, despite Jakarta's insistence nothing more can be done for them.
Their legal team have argued that they have been rehabilitated in prison and Widodo had failed to consider the cases properly.
The looming executions have dramatically heightened tensions between Australia and Indonesia, fraying ties that were only just recovering from a spying row.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has made repeated pleas for the men to be spared and even urged Indonesia to remember Canberra's significant help in dealing with the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
However, the remarks sparked anger in Indonesia, with several groups organizing collections of coins to return the aid to Australia and Vice President Jusuf Kalla saying the money would be given back if Canberra did not consider it "humanitarian".
France has been piling pressure on Indonesia over the executions, last week summoning the Indonesian ambassador to express its "extreme concern".
And with a second of its citizens due to face the firing squad, Brazil is also ratcheting up diplomatic efforts, with President Dilma Rousseff refusing last week to accept the credentials of the new Indonesian ambassador.
The family of Rodrigo Gularte, who recently lost his appeal for presidential clemency, say he has been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and should be in a psychiatric facility.
After visiting him in jail in central Java on Tuesday, his cousin Angelita Muxfeldt told AFP that "he doesn't understand what has happened".
"He thinks he will go home, death penalty doesn't exist anymore."
Source: Agence France Presse
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