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.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS