Bali 9 lose death penalty case
2007-10-30 16:18
Jakarta - An Indonesian court on Tuesday dismissed a legal challenge to the death penalty brought by lawyers for members of an Australian drugs gang on death row for heroin smuggling.
Three members of the so-called Bali Nine gang of Australian heroin smugglers and two Indonesian women filed a demand in January for a judicial review by the Constitutional Court of the law that saw them sentenced to death.
They argued that Indonesia's drugs law, which metes out the death penalty, violates a section of the constitution guaranteeing the right to life.
But the head of the nine-member panel hearing their demand, Jimly Asshidiqie, said that the Australians had no right to challenge Indonesian laws.
Petitions denied
"In conclusion...plaintiffs who are Indonesian nationals have legal standing (in Indonesian law) while plaintiffs who are foreign nationals have no legal standing... so the proposals of plaintiffs three to five cannot be accepted", he said, referring to the trio of Australians.
Regardless, the petitions of the Indonesians were "denied in their entirety", the judge added.
"This is bad news for everyone", Todung Mulya Lubis, a lawyer for four of the five plaintiffs, told reporters.
He added that as the decision had not been unanimous, the death penalty debate would continue for years to come.
Australians Scott Rush, Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan and two Indonesian nationals, Edith Sianturi and Rani Andriani, had hoped that a favourable decision would either allow them to launch appeals or seek favourable presidential pardons.
Constitutional court decisions have not typically been applied retroactively in Indonesia.
The two ringleaders of the Australian gang - Sukumaran and Chan - were sentenced to death in 2006 for their roles in trying to traffic heroin from the Indonesian resort island of Bali back to Australia in 2005.
Sentenced to life in prison
Rush was initially sentenced to life in prison for his role in the smuggling ring, but the Supreme Court later changed it to a death sentence.
Si Yi Chen, Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen and Matthew Norman were arrested in a hotel room in Bali with a small quantity of heroin in 2005, shortly after others in the group were arrested at the island's airport.
The trio were sentenced to life in prison. An initial High Court appeal reduced their sentences to 20 years, but a Supreme Court ruling later ordered their execution as well.
The final three members are serving prison sentences ranging from life to 20 years for their roles in the plot.
The two Indonesian women were sentenced to death in 2001 and 2000 for trying to smuggle heroin through Jakarta's Sukarno-Hatta airport.
The Australian case has dogged relations between Jakarta and Canberra.