Australia abolished the death penalty in 1973, but its government is under fire for helping Indonesia catch nine suspected Australian heroin smugglers who could face a firing squad on Bali.
The case of the so-called Bali Nine has been splashed all over Australian papers since their arrests earlier this month and is casting a shadow over a new era of cooperation between Australian and Indonesian police that dawned after deadly 2002 bombings on the holiday island.
Civil libertarians say that Australian Federal Police (AFP) involvement in the investigation that led to the arrests and a decision to allow the suspects to be detained in Indonesia rather than Australia is tantamount to throwing the alleged traffickers to a Bali court that could order them executed if they are convicted.
"If these Australians are put before a firing squad, it will be because the AFP helped to put them there," Cameron Murphy, president of the New South Wales state Council of Civil Liberties, said in a statement. "It is not appropriate for Australian taxpayers' money to be used to put people in front of firing squads."
Indonesian police said on Wednesday they would likely face the death penalty. Four of the suspects were caught as they prepared to fly to Australia allegedly with packets of heroin strapped to their bodies. Five others were arrested elsewhere in Bali.
Several of the suspects had made repeated trips to Bali, some traveling on false passports, Indonesian police say. Australian officials said yesterday that one of them had worked temporarily in an Australian passport office in 2000.
Had the suspects been allowed to board the plane and picked up by police in Sydney, they would have faced at worst a lengthy prison term if convicted. Justice Minister Chris Ellison defended the actions of Canberra, saying Australian police battling to stamp out terrorism in the country's Asian neighbors must respect legislation in other jurisdictions -- and that includes many that still have the death penalty.
"At the end of the day this investigation is being conducted in Indonesian jurisdiction," Ellison said. "The crime is alleged to have occurred on Indonesian soil."
Cooperation between Australia and Indonesia has intensified dramatically since the Oct. 12, 2002, Bali bombings that killed 202 people including 88 Australians. Australian federal agents work closely with their Indonesian counterparts to investigate attacks like last year's deadly bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta and hunt down terror cells. The last person executed in Australia was murderer Ronald Ryan in 1967 and Canberra refuses to extradite suspects to other countries unless it gets guarantees they will not face the death penalty. Ellison also said that the government would appeal for clemency if the nine alleged smugglers are sentenced to death.
"The Australian government will go to bat to avoid the death sentence being carried out in relation to any Australian citizen," he pledged.
Murphy said yesterday that Canberra should never put the lives of Australians on the line to boost counterterror cooperation.
"I would hate to think that the reason why we have cooperated in this way, a way that could lead to the execution by firing squad of nine Australians ... is to facilitate our anti-terrorist efforts," Murphy said. "That is not an acceptable reason."
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