By Paul Dobbyn
“THE executioners had the finger on the trigger as it were and they’ve released it … there is some hope.”
Brisbane lawyer Bob Myers, associated with the Bali Nine drug smuggling case since 2005, summed up the situation for Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran last week.
The duo, convicted as ringleaders of the Australian group caught with a combined 8.3kg of heroin at Denpasar Airport in 2005, await death by a firing squad on the central Java island of Nusakambangan.
They arrived there on March 4 under military guard and it was expected they would be shot within days of arrival.
A recent announcement indicated the Indonesian Government wishes to wait for the result of legal appeals of some of the 10 drug felons ready for the firing squad.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is still waiting for a “final call” with Indonesia’s President over the fate of the prisoners.
Mr Myers said he drew hope that the Australian men might be spared the firing squad from the sudden pause in what seemed an inevitable process.
“For the Indonesians having committed themselves so deeply to be taking this pause is faintly hopeful,” he said.
“They’ve gone to the very brink, having said they would not take notice of any requests to stop the executions, so this stop is a positive sign.”
Mr Myers said the stay would give him more time to send a further letter to Indonesia’s president.
“I’ll be saying in this letter as in the other two I’ve sent in the past weeks that the Australian Federal Police acted improperly in tipping off the Indonesian authorities that the nine Australians were heading back home with the heroin,” he said.
“The AFP has given no reason, adequate or inadequate, as to why they informed on these people, knowing they would most likely face the death penalty.”
Mr Myers became involved in the case in April 2005 after receiving a phone call from his friend Lee Rush who was concerned his son, then 19, may be involved with others in drug trafficking.
