Last-ditch bid today to stall Bali duo’s deaths

A HUMAN rights lawyer will today to try to register judicial review applications for Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.

Bali Nine ringleader Andrew Chan in Kerobokan Jail yesterday. ‘We need Andrew in this world to tell people not to use drugs’. Picture: Lukman S. Bintoro

HUMAN rights lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis will go to Bali today to try to register judicial review applications for Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, hoping it will delay their executions.

If he can get the applications registered, Mr Todung will argue preparations for putting Sukumaran, 33, and Chan, 31, in front of a firing squad should be halted.

With Indonesian Attorney-General Muhammad Prasetyo expected to finalise arrangements for the Bali Nine pair’s executions, along with possibly nine others, by the end of next week, Mr ­Todung admitted his team was running short of time. “I know that time is of the ­essence, but we will try to do our best because we do not believe they deserve the death penalty,” he said.

However, yesterday in a CNN interview, President Joko Widodo repeated he would not spare the lives of any drug convicts on death row. “In one year, it’s 18,000 people who die because of narcotics,” he said. “We are not going to compromise for drug dealers. No compromise. No compromise.”

A Bali pastor who visited Chan in Kerobokan prison said yesterday that he remained optimistic. “He’s a very good, strong man,” said Pastor Marjuly Doloksaribu. “We keep praying inside the jail. We don’t talk about his death penalty, we talk about him doing his best inside the prison.’’

However, even before Den­pasar District Court decides whether to accept the appli­cations, the legal team is in difficulty because regulations require Chan and Sukumaran to be present for registration.

Because of security considerations and the media hubbub surrounding their attempt to stave off execution, Mr Todung fears Kerobokan’s governor will not allow them to leave the prison.

Chan and Sukumaran’s first judicial review by the Supreme Court failed to lift their death sentences for heroin smuggling, imposed in February 2006, and the top court recently “advised” lower jurisdictions not to forward second or subsequent applications from prisoners facing execution.

The basis of the new appeal is that the Supreme Court erred in a 2011 application decision by failing to assess the defence’s argument that Chan and Sukumaran had “transformed into far better people”.

In their new petition, Mr Tod­ung’s team also “regret” Mr Joko did not consider their rehabilitation when refusing them clemency, citing only a blanket rejection of clemency for drug criminals on death row because Indonesia was in a “narcotics state of emergency”.

“It is regrettable the President did not see or consider the present condition of Myuran and Andrew, who have greatly changed for the better and have inspired fellow inmates following their rehabilitation process,” it says.

Pastor Marjuly, of the Gereja Pentecostal church, said yesterday he was phoned by Chan on Sunday: “He asked me to come and pray for him.’’

The pastor has known both Australians since 2009, when he began ministering to inmates on a rotational basis with other churches, and formed a particularly close friendship with Chan.

On Monday, he went to the jail to pray and talk, but Chan, who studies theology and leads prison church services, did not want to discuss the imminent executions.

Pastor Marjuly spoke yesterday of a fine young man, loved by everyone for his caring ways and mentoring of inmates. “We need Andrew in this world to tell people not to use drugs. We need him alive. I pray for him because we love him, he is like my brother.’’

Several pastors joined services yesterday morning when Chan received communion.

Among them was Pastor Thompson Manafe, a past prison pastor who runs the Christian Church in Kuta.