Yesterday, convicted Australian drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran lost a bid to challenge the rejection of their clemency pleas, eliminating one of their final avenues of legal appeal.
It is not known whether the pair, currently awaiting execution on Indonesia’s Nusakambangan Island, off the coast of Java, have been informed of this. Their lawyers, however, have promised to continue the fight.
Peter Morrissey SC, one of the men’s Australian lawyers, has announced that, as the next stage of the process, an appeal will now be lodged with Indonesia’s Constitutional Court.
“The plan is to go to the Constitutional Court and get them to hear this argument,” he said. “The only argument we have to win is that the boys have never really got their game onto the park. They have never really had their rehabilitation considered.”
Per reports in News Limited, however, Indonesian Attorney-General HM Prasetyo has dismissed this plan as a diversionary tactic, saying that there will be “no more delays” to the executions.
“This is proof of their tendency to delay,” he said, following the Monday verdict, adding that further appeals would amount to “toying with law.” He also argued that clemency pleas like Chan and Sukumaran’s are a matter for the President only.
Chan and Sukumaran are part of a group of 10 inmates currently awaiting execution; several of their fellow prisoners are also going through the appeals process, and Indonesia will set an execution date when this is complete.
Andrew Chan’s brother Michael, who has been visiting the pair on Nusakambangan, says that they are holding up “relatively well” under the current circumstances.
“All we can do really is take it day by day,” he said. “There is not much else we can do It is what it is, there is not much we can do about it.”
Photo: Ed Wray via Getty Images
