Bali 9: Latest reports on executions of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran

This is the final post for this blog, please join us here for continuing rolling coverage throughout the day of the aftermath of the executions.

In summary this evening:

• Eight prisoners, including the Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, were shot and killed by a firing squad in Indonesia at 12.35am on Wednesday.
• One woman, Mary Jane Veloso, who was scheduled to be executed with the other eight was given a reprieve at the eleventh hour.
• A decision to prevent the Australian men from seeing their pastors in their final hours was overturned late last night. However, the pastors were not allowed to accompany them during the execution itself.
• Australia's consul general for Bali, Majell Hind, will formally take possession of the bodies of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran before they are transported by ambulance to a funeral home in Jakarta.

It took 27 minutes for Indonesian authorities to confirm that the eight people executed on Nusakambangan were deceased, according to local media reports.

News portal detik.com quoted spokesman for the attorney general Tony Spontana saying they were "shot at 00.35 and died at 01.02."

Whether it was a long agonising death remains uncertain. More likely, it took that amount of time for Indonesian doctors to check each of the victims.

Under Indonesian regulations, the commander of the firing squad will kill an execution victim with a bullet to the head if they don't die quickly at the hands of the 12 person firing squad.

The firing squads stands five to 10 metres away from their victim.

The devastated families of Bali Nine ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran are beginning to speak of their enormous grief after the two men were executed in Indonesia.

Andrew's brother, Michael Chan, said he missed his little brother already.

via AAP

Our reporter Tom Allard, speaking from Indonesia, on the executions that have taken place this morning, and the unexpected stay granted to one prisoner.

Correspondent Jewel Topsfield has just filed this report on what unfolded across the water from the firing range where eight people, including Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, were killed this morning:

Communications were jammed at Wijayapura Port opposite Nusakambangan as the executions took pace.

Mothers of Mercy staged a moving candlelight vigil, praying for mercy and for President Joko Widodo, and playing a version of the Leonard Cohen anthem Hallelujah.

Evangelist Owen Pomana said he had come to Cilacap to honour his friend Andrew Chan.

A New Zealander, he intends to do a haka when chan's body is brought through the harbour gates in an ambulance.

"I've learned a lot from Andrew Chan, he's the brother I never had," Mr Pomana said.

He said he had always dreamed of traveling with Chan on a Harley Davidson, working out with him and ministering to people, who had been "messed up" just like them.

"I'm a reformed prisoner too. I had a a dark past but I'm evidence of the fact you can be rehabilitated," Mr Pomana said.

He had helped Andrew Chan source things he needed in Bali's Kerobokan jail including COR manikins and hot water tanks for the women's showers.

"I want to honour my friend. Just being here is a statement that we care. He's my friend, he's my brother."

A midnight candlelight vigil at Cilicap held to coincide with the execution of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sakamaran and six others.Credit: James Brickwood

Heartbreaking words from Todung Mulya Lubis, one of the human rights lawyers who acted on behalf of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran right up until the end. He typed these statements moments after the young mens' deaths.

Eight prisoners, including Bali nine organisers Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, were executed at 12.30am.

However, local TV stations and the Jakarta Post are reporting that Filipina maid Mary Jane Veloso was given a last minute reprieve.

Relatives and friends of the condemned were in a tent near the killing field and became hysterical when the shots were heard, a source told Fairfax Media.

Among those in the tent were Chan and Sukumaran's Australian lawyer Julian McMahon, Bayside Church senior pastor Christie Buckingham and Salvation Army minister David Soper, who were allowed to spend precious last hours with the Australians.

Veloso's lawyer, Agus Salim, was still seeking clarification on whether his client had been spared at the 11th hour.

"The information was like that but we are thing to get certainty."

There are early reports eight of the nine prisoners, including the two Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, have now been executed. But at least two Indonesian news sources say the Filipina Mary Jane Velosa has been spared. This information has not yet been confirmed by Fairfax Media.

From the Jakarta Post just now:

Defying intense pressure from the international community, the government executed eight death row prisoners early on Wednesday on Nusakambangan prison island near Cilacap in Central Java.

"We've carried out the executions," said an Attorney General's Office (AGO) official, talking to the press on condition of anonymity.

The eight were Indonesian Zainal Abidin, Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte, Nigerians Sylvester Obiekwe Nwolise, Raheem Agbaje Salami and Okwudili Oyatanze, Ghanaian Martin Anderson.

Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso of the Philippines was spared after a woman who allegedly recruited her to act as a drug courier gave himself up to police in the Philippines on Tuesday.

AGO spokesman Tony Spontana said the government had agreed to the final requests fielded by two Australian death-row convicts for their bodies to be flown to Australia for burial.

There are reports on Indonesian TV that the prisoners have now been moved to the execution site, according to the ABC and other sources.