The families of Bali Nine death row inmates are taking their pleas for mercy to Jakarta. Source: AAP
THE mothers of death row Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran have taken their struggle to stop the firing squad to Indonesia's capital, as their lawyers try yet another route to have their day in court.
HELEN Chan and Raji Sukumaran, and brothers of the Bali Nine ringleaders, Chintu Sukumaran and Michael Chan, had wanted to make their appeal for mercy outside the presidential palace.
But the worst floods since 2012 crippled Jakarta's roads and forced them indoors.Mrs Sukumaran said she wanted President Joko Widodo to know both men were committed to rehabilitating others through classes that weren't available at Kerobokan jail before.If they were spared from execution - which is being planned for this month - they would continue using their lives to help others, she said.Seeing how they had helped others had kept both families going for the past decade since their crime."Now at the end of 10 years, they want to execute them, how would you take it?" Mrs Sukumaran said."It's not fair."Michael Chan urged the president to look at testimonies from inmates, many of them Indonesian citizens, who had stayed off drugs thanks to the classes."Give them another go at life and they will thrive with what they do," he said."Look at their individual merits and not a blanket process, that's all I ask."Lawyers for Chan, 31, and Sukumaran, 33, will seek to argue this unfairness in the courts.Mr Joko plans to enforce the death penalty for 64 death row drug offenders, regardless of their circumstances.Lawyer for the Australians, Todung Mulya Lubis, said it was "unfair, unjust and unacceptable" that individual cases weren't judged on their merits."This is probably the only legal recourse left for us at the moment," he told reporters.The challenge would be filed this week and a letter sent to inform the attorney-general, who is planning the next executions. He hoped this would mean Chan and Sukumaran would be excluded from those plans.Mrs Sukumaran said the families were desperate for the men to get a hearing, but didn't know where to turn to next.Chintu Sukumaran said they had seen Indonesia save its own citizens from the death penalty abroad and hoped it could also practice mercy at home."What mum is asking for ... is that the same type of mercy is extended to Myu and Andrew that Indonesia seeks for its own citizens," he said.While in Jakarta, the Sydney families found an ally in Indonesia's Commission for Human Rights (Komnas HAM).Commissioner Sandra Moniaga said they would write to the president on the family's behalf."We encouraged them to keep on fighting, to continue their struggle," she said.The lawyers' bid to have a second judicial review of the case was rejected by the courts in Denpasar last week.In 2012, a presidential clemency decree was challenged in Indonesia's State Administrate by anti-drugs group GRANAT.It failed to overturn former president Susilo Bambang Yudohoyono's decision to grant clemency to Australian Schapelle Corby.A friend of Sukumaran's read out a statement from him on ABC TV's Q&A program, appealing to the Indonesian government to spare he and Chan."I acknowledge more than anyone that I have made mistakes and that I am not a perfect person. But I've learnt a lot in prison and am grateful to the Indonesian justice system and to the prison guards for allowing me to achieve all that I have for myself and for the other prisoners."Andrew (Chan) and I are not the same people we were 10 years ago but who is really?"We did commit a serious crime and deserve punishment but we have also paid a great deal for our crimes as have our families."Please allow us to stay in prison and live. Our families should not have to suffer more for our mistakes."
