Two Australians on death row in Indonesia for drug trafficking are scheduled to be executed this month, the Indonesian Foreign Ministry said Friday.
Ministry spokesman Armanatha Nasir said it had received notification from the prosecutor’s office in Bali that Andrew Chan, 31, and Myuran Sukumaran, 33, were due for execution in February.
“We have conveyed this information to the families of the convicts,” he said.
He said the ministry was not informed of the exact schedule of the executions.
The announcement after Chan and Sukumaran sent an informal, hand-written letter to the government requesting a stay of their executions, saying they wanted to serve Indonesians and support the government’s rehabilitation programmes.
The letter was a last-ditch attempt after a court on the resort island of Bali announced this week it had rejected an application for a second case review.
Chan and Sukumaran are the only members of the so-called Bali Nine drug-smuggling ring on death row for trying to smuggle 8.3 kilograms of heroin from Bali to Australia in 2005.
The remaining Bali Nine members were sentenced to life or 20 years in prison.
Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo said this month that authorities were preparing a new series of executions after President Joko Widodo rejected clemency requests for 11 convicts including one person each from Brazil, France, Ghana, the Philippines and Nigeria.
Indonesia last month executed six convicted traffickers, including foreigners from Malawi, Brazil, Nigeria, the Netherlands and Vietnam, prompting the Netherlands and Brazil to recall their ambassadors to protest the executions.
Executions in Indonesia are carried out by firing squad.
Joko has ruled out mercy for drug traffickers and has defended the death penalty, saying the country’s drug problem has reached an emergency level.
There are more than 100 people on death row in Indonesian prisons, mostly for drug offences.
GNA
