By David Crowe, Ben Cubby and Natassia Chrysanthos
A media storm threatens to thwart plans to transfer five of the Bali Nine drug traffickers to Australia by the end of the year, heightening a dispute over their fate while Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto considers a request to let them come home.
Australian officials fear debate will frustrate the diplomatic effort to gain Indonesian approval for the transfer almost two decades after the Bali Nine were arrested, given neither side has settled the legal process to move them from prison.
Previous Australian governments had raised the fate of the Bali Nine over the years. Credit: Composite: Nathan Perri
Indonesia’s coordinating minister for law, human rights, immigration and correctional institutions Yusril Ihza Mahendra said the president had “approved the steps” to settle the matter, but the Australian government cautioned against assuming the five would be freed because the final decision would be up to Indonesian authorities.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese asked Prabowo to approve the transfer during a meeting at a summit in Peru last week after raising the issue with him in a phone call weeks earlier and at a dinner in Canberra in August.
The prime minister also raised the fate of the five Australians with former Indonesian president Joko Widodo, but a decision on the transfer had to wait until after the Indonesian election in February and Prabowo’s inauguration in October.
Australians involved in the talks said there was no “quid pro quo” and no prisoner swap as part of the discussions and that the request was up to Prabowo to decide.
“This has been a request, not a transaction,” said an Australian government source who declined to be named due to concerns about diplomatic protocol. “It is an act of friendship.”
Previous Australian governments had raised the fate of the Bali Nine over the years, but this intensified after Albanese took power.
News broke on Friday of the men’s potential transfer when The Australian quoted Yusril as saying the transfer was expected to be done in December.
This took the Australian government by surprise when ministers were preparing to focus on the cost of living in the final week of parliament.
In a video statement obtained by this masthead, Yusril confirmed plans were under way to transfer the men.
“We have discussed this issue many times with Mr Prabowo and he approved the steps being formulated by the government which we call the transfer of prisoners to their country of origin with several conditions,” he said.
Australian ministers have been tight-lipped about the details because the decisions are up to the Indonesian government and the Australians are worried Indonesian authorities may be offended if the Australian side seems to assume the outcome.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto held talks in Peru during the APEC summit.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
The nine Australians were arrested in Bali in April 2005 on suspicion of trying to smuggle more than eight kilograms of heroin out of Indonesia. The AFP later confirmed it had tipped off the Indonesian police about the likely deal. The nine were sentenced in early 2006.
Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed in April 2015. Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen died from cancer in June 2018. Renae Lawrence was released from prison in November 2018.
Matthew Norman, Michael Czugaj, Scott Rush, Martin Stephens and Si Yi Chen are serving life sentences in prisons on Bali and Java.
Matthew Norman and his father, Michael Norman, in Bali’s Kerobokan jail at Christmas in 2017.Credit: Amilia Rosa
The Coalition attacked the moves by demanding answers on whether there was a deal given the consequences of heroin smuggling.
Listing the questions Albanese should answer, shadow attorney-general Michaelia Cash said: “What is the deal? What has he extracted in relation for the deal? What is Australia giving up in relation to the deal? How much is it going to cost the Australian taxpayer? Will they continue to serve their prison sentences because they have been sentenced to life imprisonment in Indonesia? Will they continue to serve them out in Australia? And if not, why not?”
Asked on Sky News if she believed the five should remain in prison in Indonesia, Cash said the priority for her in government would be the cost of living.
Trade Minister Don Farrell on Sunday said discussions were continuing.
“The proposal isn’t, as I understand it, to release these people,” Farrell said on Sky News. “They would continue to serve their sentences, in Australia.”
A barrier could be the lack of a prisoner swap agreement between Australia and Indonesia, according to legal experts.
“There’s a long history of trying to negotiate a prisoner transfer agreement, starting in the Howard government days, sparked by matters associated with Schapelle Corby, but no agreement was finalised,” said Donald Rothwell, professor of international law at the Australian National University. “There is no [pre-existing] legal process under which prisoners can be transferred.”
With James Massola and Karuni Rompies.
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