JAKARTA, Sept 6: Indonesia has sentenced four more Australians to death by firing squad for drug smuggling in Bali, a ruling that sparked an immediate call for clemency from officials in Canberra on Wednesday.
The Supreme Court rulings, issued last month but only revealed Wednesday, meant that six Australian members of the so-called “Bali Nine” would face execution for trafficking heroin from the Indonesian resort island last year.
“Six got the death sentence, and two received life sentences” on appeal, court spokesman Joko Upoyo Pribadi said. The ninth member of the Bali Nine, Renae Lawrence, did not appeal her 20-year jail term, he said.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said officials had confirmed the rulings with their Indonesian counterparts, and that Australia would support appeals to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for clemency.
“I have no idea whether those appeals will be successful or not. We haven’t had a situation with Indonesia in the last 10 years where an Australian has been executed,” Downer told reporters.
An Australian embassy spokesman in Jakarta said the court had informed embassy officials earlier Wednesday of the rulings.
“The Supreme Court has informed us that it had upheld the death sentence for Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran and that four more — Scott Rush, Tach Duc Thanh Nguyen, Si Yi Chen, and Matthew Norman — have had their sentences increased to the death penalty,” said the spokesman.
Michael Czugaj had his sentence increased from 20 years to life in prison and Martin Stephens had his life sentence upheld, said the official.
Supreme Court Judge Iskandar Kamil said he had upgraded the sentences of the four Australians because of the seriousness and highly organised nature of their crime.
“The death sentence is deemed to be in accordance to their deeds,” state news agency Antara quoted the judge as saying.
“A crime which was done in an organized way should be (punished) more severely.”
Downer said the Supreme Court’s appeals panel had taken the view that the heroin the defendants attempted to smuggle would have done enormous damage both in Indonesia and other countries.
“And so as a result they’ve decided on their initiative and without being urged to do so by the prosecution ... to apply the death penalty in these cases,” he said.
The ruling is expected to create a furore in Australia, because three of the defendants — Nguyen, Norman and Si Yi Chen — initially had their life sentences reduced to 20 years by the Bali High Court earlier this year.
The Bali Nine case provoked outrage in Australia, with some suggesting that the Australian police should not have tipped off their Indonesian counterparts, thus putting the nine at risk of getting the death penalty.
Indonesia has been handing down stiff penalties for drug traffickers and users, with 35 other convicts on death row for narcotics offences.—AFP
