Andrew Chan
Myuran Sukumaran
Indonesia has postponed the transfer of eight convicted drug smugglers, including seven foreigners, to a prison island for execution due to technical problems and to allow the two Australians among them to spend more time with their families, an official said yesterday.
The eight convicts are facing imminent execution despite international appeals for clemency. Among them are Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, the ringleaders of a group of nine Australians arrested in 2005 for attempting to smuggle 8.3 kilograms of heroin to Australia from the Indonesian resort island of Bali.
Authorities said Monday that all of the inmates would be transferred this week to Nusa Kambangan prison off the main island of Java to face a firing squad.
But Attorney General’s Office spokesman Tony Spontana said yesterday that executors surveying the island found it was not ready to handle the executions.
He said the inmates would be transferred after the location is ready, but did not give a time frame.
Spontana said that “the execution plan is still on schedule” since the inmates’ clemency appeals have been rejected. “The change is the plan of transfer, which was to have been carried out this week,” he said, adding that prison officials in Nusa Kambangan have suggested that the convicts be moved there three days before the executions.
The postponement was also in response to requests from Australia’s government to allow Chan, 31, and Sukumaran, 33, to spend more time with their families before they are transferred, Spontana said. The two are currently being held in a prison in Bali.
Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has rejected appeals by Australia’s government for clemency for Chan and Sukumaran, and has vowed not to grant mercy to any other drug offenders because Indonesia is suffering a “drug emergency.”
Australia has abolished capital punishment and opposes executions of any Australian overseas.
Chan and Sukumara were the only two members of the group of nine Australians arrested to be given the death penalty. The seven other members of the group — dubbed the “Bali Nine” by Australian media — have received prison sentences ranging from 20 years to life.
The other convicts to be executed are five men from France, Brazil, Ghana, Nigeria and Indonesia, and a woman from the Philippines. Ali Kotarumalos, Jakarta, AP
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