Bali Nine clemency plea pushed at the highest level, says Julie Bishop
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Version 0 of 1. Australia will continue to press Indonesia at the highest level to grant clemency to two citizens on death row, Julie Bishop has said, arguing that such executions would not solve the drug problem. The foreign affairs minister said she had met the families of Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan over the weekend to assure them the government would not stop its efforts to seek clemency. “Prime minister [Tony] Abbott and I have continued to raise the cases every time we meet with the senior leadership of the Indonesian government,” Bishop told the Today show. “My personal view is that an execution of drug traffickers will not stop the problem of drugs in and out of Indonesia, that there’s a much broader approach that needs to be taken, however, the Indonesian government seems to be intent on pursuing the death penalty for drug traffickers.” Those efforts included Abbott writing another letter to the Indonesian president, Joko Widodo. Sukumaran and Chan, members of the so-called Bali Nine, were sentenced to death over a 2005 plot to smuggle heroin from Indonesia to Australia. Bishop said both Australians had “made significant efforts at rehabilitation” and this should be taken into account. The Indonesian government had “so far rebuffed our pleas” on the basis that the country was facing a drugs crisis and the death penalty was part of the law, she said. “The Australian government will continue to make representations at the highest level,” Bishop told Sky News. Bishop would not speculate on whether Australia would follow the Dutch and Brazilian governments in recalling ambassadors if Indonesia followed through with the executions. Dutch and Brazilian citizens were among six people killed by firing squad in Indonesia on Sunday. Sukumaran’s plea for clemency was rejected last month but the Indonesian president is yet to make a final decision on Chan’s request. Jakarta has indicated that if Chan’s appeal was rejected the two men would be executed together. The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, said Labor stood “shoulder to shoulder” with the government in its appeal to Indonesia for clemency because both parties were opposed to the death penalty. Jimly Asshiddiqie, a former chairman of Indonesia’s constitutional court, has spoken out to challenge Jakarta’s inconsistency on capital punishment. |