Beoz

Clearly the Indonesians are doing this for propaganda. Check this article. Who lets photographers take photo's of coffins and crosses and release to the media.

Bali Nine executions: Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan’s lawyer wants ‘bribe’ probed

The Indonesians had to be very careful about the way they handled the Saudi beheadings. Informally they sent out a rent a crowd (apparently easy to get in Jakarta) to throw eggs at the Saudi embassy. Whilst formally they paid some more bribe money, and gingerly had a chat with the Saudi's.

Following this week’s executions, the Indonesian government summoned Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to express its disappointment. Rather than focusing specifically on the deaths themselves, however, Indonesia took issue with not receiving proper, prior notification that the executions were to take place.

“The Indonesian government, once again, has expressed its disappointment that Indonesian representatives in both Riyadh and Jeddah didn’t receive information about the timing of the execution of Karni binti Medi Tarsim,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

Indonesia activists throw rotten eggs at Saudi embassy to protest executions ucanews.com

Talk about getting yourself caught between a rock and hard place through your own hypocrisy. Either way, the puppet for Indonesia's power brokers, Joko Widodo is screwed. There was a lot of hope pinning on this guy especially on the international stage. Gone.

Swerv-o

Plus it's ASEAN this week, so all eyes will be on the Asian countries. Not a great time to be executing people I wouldn't have thought.


S

jad n rich

Staged or enough hungry press set up all over the departure point to the island, that shots of relatives, coffins, crosses and possibly the returning coffins will all be part of the media haul.

The whole situation is going to attract a wide variety of opinions. And argument.

As is the Death penalty. Opinions and argument.

We often go to in the snow of Utah USA, it took me back they have the death penalty too. For murder mainly, one could argue Drug trafficking is also a form of murder. Indonesia makes it laws clear.

Australia has spent 10 years and what must be a mind boggling amount of millions of taxpayer money defending these men, I am not sure what else they could have done.

Odd situation in that it was Australia that blew the whistle on them after all. Australia did not want that drug haul here, one little haul stopped thousand more came in. But mixed messages.

Indonesia's message is at least clear and consistent, tourists know the rules, as do traffickers.

Australia's is mixed, traffic drugs and we will spend 10 years defending you?

What the families are going thorough must be intolerable, the media is having a gawk fest. Greed for money made people do stupid things, or calculated things, opinons again.

Mary Jane Veloso, one of the others to be executed that in my mind, should have been given some doubt as to her guilt. Interesting reading, even if she was guilty it was probably done out of poverty and abuse not greed.

The saddest thing of all is, even after all the publicity, in a few months, more will be caught doing the same thing.

Heartbreaking, for their families, the junkies, the mules to some extent, the ringleaders? Opinions and argument.

May the families find peace after this.

Beoz

Whoopsy. Nice work Feds.

Swerv-o

Yes, this has long been the bone of contention with this case. The AFP could have stopped them in Australia, where there is no death sentence. Instead, they elected to let them proceed to Indonesia, where they alerted the Indonesian authorities to the package.


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GarryP

One could also argue that drug laws are a form of prohibition - which is known to benefit only criminals and the police. Fundamentally rethinking a set of laws which are supposed to help, but only make things worse, might be a good idea.

knockoff nige

I kind of agree but this statement always seems empty and without any real plan. Do we make everything legal just so that we can control it better? There will always be a black market for things like drugs, counterfeit stuff, guns etc. i'm not against making certain drugs legal for medicinal purposes but can't see the benefit of loosening the laws on class A drugs.

Definitely don't agree with the death sentence, especially a firing squad. Maybe I'm being very ignorant but what kind of nut case wants to be an executioner in a firing squad? Maybe it's pure obligation if you enlist for service.

OzTennis

Yes, complicated issue but surely there needs to be some deterrent in place for major crime - and trying to make yourself rich out of peddling someone's else's misery is a major crime and always should be. I guess the two knew there was the death penalty in Indonesia if caught so no sympathy for them and the circumstances which led to them not being nabbed in a more lenient society in pursuit of a fast buck. I can't help thinking if they were caught in Oz they wouldn't get a long jail sentence, it would be shortened for good behaviour and 'genuine remorse' they express as they volunteer to take painting classes in the jail and there would be a good chance they'd be back on the streets or planes and peddling. I'm not in favour of the death penalty but it's on the books in Indonesia and these guys knew it; they just hoped they wouldn't be caught.

xizzles

I may not agree with the death penalty, but I cannot agree with drug traffickers destroying the lives of so many other people and that of their families either.

Every time I fly into Singapore on Singapore Airlines, they make this announcement about how severe the penalties are for drug traffickers. Apparently, it's the same for Malaysia Airlines flying into Kuala Lumpur. I'm not sure about any announcements flying into Indonesia, but I'd imagine these guys knew what the law of the land was. They chose to risk it, they got caught and now they have to pay the ultimate price.

Gordon Barlow

They probably missed on selection to be drone pilots.

Beoz

The issue here is not about the crime or penalties. Its about the double standards, hypocrisy, vote buying by death penalty by the indonesian government. The bribery and corruption surrounding such a final penalty .... death.

Take a look at the figures. What proportion of foreigners are on death row or executed compared to locals.

Ok lets look at this. If there are that many foreigners on death row who were caught on Indonesian soil, they must have been dealing with locals somewhere along the line. Where are they?

Gordon Barlow

All nations operate double standards. Australia has just been celebrating Anzac Day, the invasion of a foreign country that posed no threat to Oz. It's the deaths of the invaders (our people) that are mourned, not the deaths of the victims (their people). That's just the way things are in the world.

Beoz

ah er! Nice try at fabricating a comparisons but that didn't exactly work. What Australians are remembering in Anzac day is those who have lost their lives through decisions of others. And in the case of Gallipoli decisions made by the British. Australians also remember that events like Gallipoli occured 100 years ago, a different time era, and the Commonwealth doesn't hold the same binding as it once did. What the Indonesian government are doing is now, today, and should it be raised in 20 years time, a new Indonesian government will sweep the hipocracy of its former government under the carpet. You never even know ...... lose face and admit the mistakes in the process. Which in part is what rememberance ceremonies remember ...... mistakes.

JoeBloggs80

No-one comes out of this well.

The Indonesion govt are proven to be corrupt murderers.

The Australian govt are weak-willed hypocrites. Oooh withdrawing your ambassador.
That'll really teach them. Are we going to say anything about the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, China, the US, etc? Thought not.

The Australian media harp on with their usual double standards. If these blokes were caught in Australia they would be scum of the earth and jail would be too good them. Now suddenly they are martyrs.

The Australian public indulge in a bit of grief porn to make themselves feel better before going to their skinny lattes.

Meanwhile, 2 Australians, 4 Nigerians, an Indonesian and a mentally ill Brazilian got shot.

What a waste.

xizzles

I don't dispute the sneaky suspicion that the courts in Indonesia may be and most probably are less than squeaky clean, given their track records - but hypocrisy or double standards notwithstanding, the facts of the case still remain the same: these were convicted drug traffickers, whose merchandise would have gone on to kill/destroy/rip apart many innocent lives and those of their families.

No amount of double standards, hypocrisy or Indonesian vote buying can possibly excuse the Bali 9 for what they did. Peel away the bluster about the allegations of bribery, the diplomatic posturing, the paintings, the disparity in the figures between locals vs foreigners on death row, the protests and you still get the same result: drug traffickers who wouldn't have cared any less about the lives they were about to destroy, had they been successful.

Like I said earlier, I don't agree with the death penalty, not one bit - but at the same time, I find it really hard to sympathize with the convicts in this particular case.