With as grim of an outlook as ever before for the two Australians on death row in Bali, their legal team is pulling out all the stops to try and save them from the firing squad.
The latest argument is that the role of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) in tracking the Bali Nine could give Australia more leverage in keeping death row inmates Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran away from the firing squad.
Brisbane lawyer Robert Myers reportedly said that he understands it as Team Abbott’s only hope, Peter Lloyd writes for ABC. Myers got involved with the case when his friend Lee Rush, the father of Bali Niner Scott Rush, called him for help.
Basically, back before the Bali Nine had been caught, when the AFP were tracking them, if the AFP asked Indonesian authorities to cooperate on keeping tabs on the group’s movements, the matter could be dealt with once they return to Australia and land on home soil. However, a letter sent from the AFP to Indonesian police instead wrote a carte blanche:
“It really said words to the effect of whatever action you see fit to take is quite alright with us, and it seemed to be an open-ended invitation to the Indonesian authorities,” Myers said.
“If they wanted to take it beyond surveillance, if they wanted to arrest these people, even wanted to charge them, even wanted to subject them to Indonesian law, that the Australians weren’t going to have any problems with that.”
Myers insists Abbott should push this point with Jokowi.
“It just struck me as though if the Government, if the Prime Minister could say on behalf of the Australian Government, [that] we find ourselves in a terribly embarrassing situation because this should never have happened in the first place.
“And if there’s an appeal made on a personal basis you’d hope that the president of Indonesia might say, ‘Look, I can see you’re in an embarrassing situation where our countries are allies… we’d hate to see the Australian Government terribly embarrassed by really a very bad error, a gross error on behalf of the AFP’, which was completely contrary to its own restrictions and guidelines.
“There is no doubt that the Attorney-General would have to personally approve the cooperation between foreign entities that could result in the death of Australian citizens, and there was no doubt that by allowing the Indonesians to really have cart blanche in relation to the Bali Nine, that all of the Bali Nine were being exposed to the death penalty.”
Photo by AFP
