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Indonesia rejects Australians' petition

"We are opposed to capital punishment, but as far as the Bali bombers are concerned, these people have committed a terrible atrocity against our people."

Alexander Downer, Australian foreign minister

Indonesia's Constitutional Court said yesterday that foreigners could not challenge the country's laws, after three Australians on death row filed a petition opposing the use of the death penalty for drug offenses.

Lawyers for the three Australians, who were sentenced to death for trying to smuggle heroin out of Indonesia's resort island of Bali, argue that the death penalty is unconstitutional because the Constitution guarantees the right to life.

"Foreigners have no legal standing to file a judicial review," said I Dewa Palguna, one of the court's judges, citing the law on which the court was set up.

Although the court said that foreigners could not challenge laws, a panel of judges considered the petition and ruled yesterday that sentencing drug offenders to death does not violate the Constitution.

The three Australians are members of the "Bali Nine," a group of eight men and one woman who were arrested in Bali in April 2005 while trying to smuggle more than 8.2kg of heroin to Australia.

Three other members of the group were sentenced to death, but were not included in the petition. Two members were given life sentences and the only women in the group is serving 20 years in jail.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Canberra would appeal to Indonesia for clemency for the nine convicted Australian drug smugglers when all legal appeal possibilities had been exhausted.

"We oppose capital punishment and will do what we can for Australians who are on death row," he told local radio.

Three of the Bali Nine -- Scott Rush and accused gang masterminds Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan -- launched the challenge in January.

Downer said Canberra's clemency appeal would extend only to Australians facing an Indonesian firing squad and his government would not make pleas on behalf of three men sentenced to death for carrying out the Bali bombings in 2002.

Over 200 people were killed by the Bali bombers, including 88 Australians and 38 Indonesians.

"We are opposed to capital punishment, but as far as the Bali bombers are concerned, these people have committed a terrible atrocity against our people," Downer said.

Indonesia imposes the death sentence for many narcotic offences, defending the penalty as necessary to deter others in a country with a growing drugs problem. Two Thai nationals were executed for drugs offences in October 2004.

At the end of last year, 134 people were on death row in Indonesia, including 37 foreigners and 97 Indonesians, most of them for drug-related crimes. At least four are extremists awaiting death for their roles in a series of bombings.

Indonesian government officials, police officers and judges have said they support capital punishment for drug crimes.

The country has executed at least eight people since 2000.
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