Journalists work outside Kerobokan jail where two convicted Australian drug smugglers, Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, are being held in Denpasar, Bali island. AFP
Reuters/AFP/Jakarta
Indonesia's president said on Tuesday the planned execution of 11 convicts on death row, most on drugs charges, would not be delayed, warning foreign countries not to intervene in the country's right to use capital punishment.
"The first thing I need to say firmly is that there shouldn't be any intervention towards the death penalty because it is our sovereign right to exercise our law," President Joko Widodo told reporters.
Widodo said he took calls from the leaders of France, Brazil and the Netherlands about the death penalty.
An Indonesian court on Tuesday dismissed a bid by two Australian drug traffickers among the 11 against the rejection of their request for presidential clemency.
Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, the ringleaders of the so-called "Bali Nine" drug smuggling gang, were arrested for trying to traffic heroin out of Indonesia in 2005 and sentenced to death the following year.
Their appeals for presidential clemency, typically a death row convict's final chance of avoiding the firing squad, were rejected by new Indonesian President Joko Widodo in recent months.
Today the Administrative Court in Jakarta dismissed the men's application to challenge Widodo's refusal to grant them clemency, a rare move that was seen as having little chance of success.
Rejecting Sukumaran's application, presiding Judge Hendro Puspito said: "Clemency is the prerogative of the president... the state administrative court has no right to rule on the challenge."
He also rejected Chan's application. The judge said that the pair had 14 days to lodge an appeal, and their lawyers said they would.
The pair's legal team had earlier applied for a second judicial review of their cases, but judges also rejected that application.
