Judges' death sentences heartless to Aussies, who have given $ millions to Indonesians
September 7th 2006 01:54
Judges rule!
Are Indonesia's appeal court judges who arbitarily imposed death sentences on Australian drug runners in touch with Indonesian public opinion at large?
If so, it's a sad state of affairs compared to how ordinary Australians gave so generously to help Indonesian survivors after the Boxing Day 2004 tsunamis.
According to Australia's NGO aid overseer ACFID, ordinary Australians gave 72 percent of Australian $379.9 million total donations for aid and reconstruction help to tsunami sufferers. Reference
Worst hit Aceh in Indonesia's north received the largest help - in money and on-the-spot help from Australia's military and hundreds of doctors, aid workers and others. The help of Aussie engineers, health and other specialists in the rebuilding is ongoing for another three years.
Australian corporates gave most of the other 28 percent for Indian Ocean tsunami relief and the Australian Federal Government made a separate, special aid package for Indonesia alone amounting to nearly $2 billion. Reference
The fact that the Indonesian appeal court judges kept their decision secret several weeks begs the question about the opinion of ordinary Indonesians.
Apparently the judges ruled in August and didn't announce it publicly that the men would now face the firing squad.
Quoting John Aglionby in Jakarta Thursday 7 Sep 06 for The Guardian:
Indonesia's supreme court has imposed the death penalty on four members of a nine-person Australian drug-running gang who were appealing against lengthy prison sentences for smuggling heroin out of Bali, officials said yesterday.
Scott Rush, Tan Duc Than Nguyen, Si Yi Chen and Matthew Norman, aged 19 to 23, were originally sentenced to life imprisonment for their roles in a plot to smuggle more than 8kg (about 18lbs) of heroin from the resort island to Australia.
The latter three had their sentences reduced to 20 years by Bali's high court while Rush's life term was upheld.
Prosecutors, who had never sought the death penalty for the four men, appealed against the sentence reductions to the supreme court, while Rush appealed against his sentence.
A supreme court official, Mulyadi, said the judges ruled last month in verdicts that were not announced publicly that the men would face the firing squad. They join the two ringleaders, Andrew Chan, 22, and Myuran Sukumaran, 25, who were sentenced to death at the trial.
The men can still seek a judicial review of the whole trial process and ask for clemency from the president.
Lawyers for the four men just sentenced to death said they had not been informed of the new sentence.
Appeals for two of the remaining three gang members are still pending in the supreme court while the ninth member - and only woman - Renae Lawrence declined to appeal after her initial life sentence was reduced to 20 years on appeal.
Four of the gang members were caught at Bali airport in April last year while the remainder of the gang were arrested at a nearby hotel preparing another shipment.
The Guardian source
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Comment by TonyK
AFL Central
NBL News
Call me heartless but I don't feel sorry for people who break the law.
Comment by Big Cat
Chatterpillar
Degrees of punishment were aired in an ABC interview a few minutes ago:
WIROWAN ADNAN: I'm dividing this into the one who is considered by the court as the dealer, as the owner, who's the player of the game, I don't think they have a chance. For Scott Rush, I'm saying he just has a chance because Scott Rush is the same as Renee, the same as Martin Stephens, but yet he got a death penalty.
GEOFF THOMPSON: And what about the option of presidential clemency. What do you think the chances are there?
WIROWAN ADNAN: I don't think they stand a chance because for clemency there has never been any precedent on drugs where the president has given a pardon for petty drug dealers.
GEOFF THOMPSON: So that would be a hollow hope, you think?
WIROWAN ADNAN: Yes, I do think so.
TONY EASTLEY: Wiwowan Adnan a leading Indonesian criminal lawyer who represents Martin Stephens who had his life sentence upheld yesterday.
More in "Rush death sentence 'absurd'"
Comment by jon
Orble News
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Comment by peekaboo
And really, just because we're the ones with the cash doesn't mean we've got any influence on another country's law. Each country has its own law. In their opinions, the death sentence IS pretty justified.
Comment by Ahmed
Video Gamer Kids
Little Green Foosballs
PolyKicks
The judge is upholding the countries law, and while the law might sound harsh by our standards, it is their law. Its not outrageous or anything, I mean it is fairly justified and all...
Comment by lethalpiano
Comment by Damo
The Indonesian courts may be completely wrong but the poorest of the poor have no power to change that.
Comment by Ahmed
Video Gamer Kids
Little Green Foosballs
PolyKicks
It contradicts the whole point of the charity in the first place, people should just shuttup about it, if they sulk then whatever money they may have donated or taken credit as 'being australian' just goes down the drain with that kind of attitude ot it all..
Comment by Big Cat
Chatterpillar