Australia offers to pay for 2 prisoners’ keep in Indonesia

Australian death-row prisoners Myuran Sukumaran, right and Andrew Chan, left

Australia has offered to cover Indonesia’s costs for keeping two Australian heroin traffickers in prison for life if Jakarta grants permanent stays of execution, the foreign minister said yesterday.
Australia is lobbying hard to prevent the executions by firing squad of Australians Andrew Chan, 31, and Myuran Sukumaran, 33. They are among nine foreign drug convicts plus an Indonesian who are to be executed soon on Nusakambangan Island prison off the main island of Java.
The offer to pay for the prisoners’ keep was made by Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop last week in a letter to her Indonesian counterpart Retno Marsudi and reported by The West Australian newspaper yesterday.
Bishop confirmed the offer was among several suggestions of alternatives to executions.
“We haven’t had a specific response to that suggestion,” Bishop told reporters.
The letter, seen by The Associated Press, proposes a prisoner exchange in which the Australians would be swapped for three Indonesian drug traffickers held in Australian prisons.
“The Australian government would be prepared to cover the costs of the ongoing life imprisonment of Mr. Chan and Mr. Sukumaran should a transfer not be possible,” Bishop wrote.
In a response dated Sunday, also seen by AP, Marsudi wrote that President Jokowi Widodo “is of the position that such an exchange cannot be undertaken.”
Also yesterday in Jakarta, the High Administrative Court adjourned a hearing on an appeal by the Australian pair until March 19 because of a lack of proper paperwork. Presiding Judge Ujang Abdullah said state prosecutors who were to have represented President Widodo failed to present authorization letters signed by the president and attorney general.
Lawyers for the Australians have appealed to the high court, arguing that Widodo’s refusal to grant clemency did not give proper and individual consideration to their applications. A Jakarta court dismissed the appeal last month, ruling that clemency is a prerogative of the president.
Bishop also said that an inquiry into alleged corruption of the Australians’ trial judges was another legal avenue open to the pair.
“A Judicial Commission has invited Mr. Chan, Mr. Sukumaran and their original lawyer to make statements in a matter relating to alleged corruption of the trial judges,” she wrote.
“These are serious allegations and I request that your government accord due legal process and institute a pause in the execution preparations until these two important processes have been completed,” she added.
A senior Indonesian official on Tuesday warned Australia to tone down its criticism of the planned executions, saying Canberra should be grateful to Indonesia for keeping asylum seekers away from Australian shores.
The minister for political, legal and security affairs, Tedjo Edy Purdjianto, said at a seminar that if about 10,000 migrants who have been stopped in Indonesia from reaching Australia were allowed to proceed, “there will be a human tsunami in Australia.”
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott responded Wednesday by saying he isn’t picking fights with anyone. Rod McGuirk, Canberra, AP