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Australia made a last-minute plea yesterday for a stay in the imminent execution of two Australian drug traffickers in Indonesia, saying reports that their trial had been tainted by corruption needed to be investigated.
The call from Foreign Minister Julie Bishop almost immediately deepened a diplomatic row with Jakarta.
Bishop said allegations that judges requested money to commute the death sentences for the pair were "very serious" and called into question the integrity of the sentencing process.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo said such concerns should have been conveyed years ago when the case went through the courts.
"Why didn't they raise it before, when it happens for example?" he said.
Armanatha Nasir, spokesman for Indonesia's foreign ministry, said Australians Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan had been given all the legal avenues to challenge their death sentences. Australia needed to show proof of alleged corruption, he added.
The two are among the nine drug convicts, including others from Brazil, Philippines, Nigeria and Indonesia, who are due to be executed by firing squad as soon as tonight.
Indonesia has harsh punishments for drug crimes and resumed executions in 2013 after a five-year gap. Widodo has been unbending in his hard line on traffickers, and his refusal to grant foreigners on death row clemency has strained relations with several countries, particularly neighbour Australia.
The nine are being held at a high-security jail on Nusakambangan Island in central Java, where dozens of police and military personnel started tightening security yesterday, erecting barriers and keeping the public at a distance.
A local undertaker, Suhendro Putro, said he handed nine coffins over to the police on Sunday.
"I cannot say they are for those prisoners, but I've been called for a meeting today at the port to prepare. I don't know when exactly the executions will happen," he said.
Chan and Sukumaran, ringleaders of the group known as the Bali Nine, were arrested at the main airport on the holiday island of Bali in 2005 for trying to smuggle 8kg of heroin to Australia. The other members of the gang, all Australians, have been jailed for between 18 years and life in Indonesia.
Bali-based lawyer Muhammad Rifan told the Sydney Morning Herald that he had agreed to pay judges in the cases of the two men more than A$130,000 (HK$788,000) to give them a prison term of less than 20 years.
Rifan said the deal fell through when the judges told him they had been ordered by senior legal and government members in Jakarta to impose a death penalty, and he didn't have enough money to meet a revised, higher demand for a lighter sentence.
"It's a matter for Indonesia's Judicial Commission to investigate these matters and that underlines why we continue to request Indonesia to allow the judicial commission to finalise its review," Bishop told reporters.
"An execution is an irrevocable step, and I believe that these hearings and these appeal processes should be concluded."
Indonesia's Judicial Commission said it would look into reports alleging corruption but said its findings would have no bearing on their cases.
Bishop criticised Indonesia for informing Chan and Sukumaran of their imminent execution on April 25, a day when Australians remember their war dead.


Australia makes last-minute plea to halt executions of two of its citizens

Workers load coffins ready to be taken to a police station near Nusakambangan, where the condemned convicts are. Photo: Reuters

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Foreign minister cites corruption allegations against judge in last-minute plea to Indonesia not to carry out sentence against drug convicts


Australia makes last-minute plea to halt executions of two of its citizens

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Foreign minister cites corruption allegations against judge in last-minute plea to Indonesia not to carry out sentence against drug convicts

Foreign minister cites corruption allegations against judge in last-minute plea to Indonesia not to carry out sentence against drug convicts