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Bali Nine: Megawati tells Joko Widodo not to grant clemency
Sydney Morning Herald - March 9, 2015
Ms Megawati is the mentor of President Joko Widodo and the leader of his party, the Indonesian Party of Struggle (PDI-P).
Critics have long claimed that Mr Joko is a "puppet president". Ms Megawati is believed to be behind some of his key decisions, including naming graft suspect Budi Gunawan as police chief.
At a speech on International Women's Day, Ms Megawati said drug use in Indonesia had entered a critical state and was the trigger for the spread of HIV.
"I therefore told Jokowi that those who sold drugs and who have been sentenced to death should not got their clemency pleas granted," she was quoted saying on Indonesian news website Kompas.
She said capital punishment for narcotics offences should be seen from the perspective of the victims, with drugs robbing many young Indonesians of their futures.
On December 9, Mr Joko told an audience at Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada University that he would reject all clemency petitions for drug felons.
"The clemency requests are not on my table yet. But I guarantee that there will be no clemency for convicts who committed narcotics-related crimes," he said.
The executions have been delayed pending the outcomes of several legal cases being pursued by the 10 felons facing imminent death.
Lawyers for Bali nine duo Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran are this week appealing against the rejection of the Australians' clemency pleas on the basis the president did not consider their cases on an individual basis or consider their rehabilitation.
The Administrative Court ruled earlier this month it did not have jurisdiction over presidential decisions. However an appeal to this finding will be heard on Thursday.
The families of Chan and Sukumaran are due to visit the men on the penal island of Nusakambangan on Monday morning for the first time since they were transferred from Bali.
Meanwhile, four naval warships that were in Bali waters for the transfer of the Bali nine duo, are now heading to Nusakambangan to secure the area ahead of the executions.
"We've been here for a week to provide a feeling of security for the people of Bali from any threat because the drug death convicts were jailed in Bali," Letkol Laut Daru Cahyo Sumirat, the commander of the Diponegoro-365 warship was quoted saying on news website Detik. "This is for the sake of the nation's integrity in the eyes of the world. We will show that Indonesia is serious in upholding the law."
The Australian government has complained about an excessive show of military force during the transfer of Chan and Sukumaran to Nusakambangan.
"It seemed that our citizens were singled out for treatment designed to maximise publicity that was certainly at odds with the treatment of other citizens of other countries in the same position," Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop said.
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