Three members of the Bali Nine heroin smuggling gang were in Denpasar District Court today, giving it one last shot at avoiding the death penalty. The gang have been holed up in Kerobokan jail for over 2 years now. I’m sure to a young person that seems like 5 years. Unlike Schapelle Corby, none of the Bali Nine have written a ‘tell all’ book about their ordeal, probably because none them can write. Still today three of the gang were in the Denpasar courtroom pursuing a judicial review of the their case. I must admit certain aspects of the sentencing were totally whacked. For starters they were only informed their sentence had been moved from 20 years to death by an Australian court reporter! Another crazy thing was them not being allowed to contest the sentencing as they were foreigners
As the 3 (Matthew Norman, Si Yi Chen, and Thanh Duc Tan Nguyen) appeared in court in Denpasar, the other 3 members of the Bali Nine on death row, (Scott Rush and ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran) were in the Constitutional Court in Jakarta that their sentencing was also unfair. Heavy weight Australian lawyers are arguing for them, but here in Indonesia that could backfire, as they take national pride seriously (remember the Minister of Justice rolling back the Tourist visa to 30 days for ‘reciprocity’). Anyway, good luck to the Bali Nine members. I suspect that most of them will end up back in Australia making license plates. Here’s more from The Age.
