Lawyers for Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, the two Bali Nine members on death row in Kerobokan prison, successfully lodged an application for a second review of their cases on Friday, in a final bid to save the pair from the firing squad.
Members of Chan and Sukumaran’s legal team arrived at the prison shortly before 8.30am, followed by a Denpasar court clerk who came out showing media the signed applications for a judicial review (PK).
Indonesian lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis later said an application for a judicial review of the case had been accepted.
“It has been accepted, it will go to the courts, then it depends on the district court heads,” he told media. “There should not be an execution because the legal process should be respected as well.”
Chan and Sukumaran’s lawyers are at this stage asking for the death sentences to be commuted to life, not an acquittal, Mulya stressed. “Those two men, the petitioners, have changed a great deal. They have become good men.”
The appeal has been complicated by confusion in the Indonesian justice system about whether death row prisoners have the right to more than one PK. It is the last of all possible avenues of appeal, and Indonesia’s supreme and constitutional courts are divided over the issue.
Both men would have had to be present for the PK application, which meant allowing a court clerk to come inside the prison, or arranging for the two men to go outside the prison to court, Guardian Australia was told.
Delays, including refusals by the justice department to allow a court visit because of security concerns, prompted fears an execution date would be set before leave was granted.
Chan and Sukumaran were sentenced to death for their parts in a heroin smuggling attempt in 2005.
Both men were denied clemency by the Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, in recent weeks and there have been conflicting statements from Indonesian officials about when the execution order would be given.
Earlier this month six prisoners, including foreign nationals, were executed by firing squad on a nearby island.
On Thursday more than 1,000 people gathered in Sydney’s Martin Place for a vigil of support and to hear from Sukumaran’s mother pleading for mercy for her son and his friend.
