Australia’s Bali Nine ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran have been sent to the prison island where they are scheduled to be executed.
Two fortified police vehicles left the prison at 5.18am local time. The second vehicle, known as a Wolf, was believed to be carrying Chan and Sukumaran.
They went directly to Bali’s airport where military aircraft flew the pair to Cilacap, the departure point for Nusakambangan – the central Java island Indonesia has reserved for the executions.
More than 100 police, a water cannon and armoured military vehicle were stationed outside Kerobokan jail in Bali as authorities prepared for the transfer.
Chan’s older brother Michael was turned away from the prison and left with Chan’s Indonesian girlfriend, who was in tears.
Speaking in Canberra before the pair were moved out of the prison, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said while he and all Australians were “revolted” by the imminent executions, he still hadn’t given up hope they could be spared.
“Even at the eleventh hour I hope there might be a change of heart in Indonesia and these executions might be stopped,” he said.
“I just want everyone to know the Australian government will never rest in our determination to let Indonesia know that we oppose the death penalty, we oppose drug crime.”
Earlier, Kerobokan prison governor Sudjonggo said he had supper with Chan and Sukumaran.
He said Sukumaran, who has become an accomplished artist during his nine years in jail, would take pencils and a drawing book to Nusakambangan.
Chan, who has been ordained as a Christian minister, would take only clothes.
Both men would take bibles, Sudjonggo told reporters.
The Australians have become the prison’s model inmates, introducing various forms of rehabilitation for other inmates.
An Indonesian police vehicle used to transfer two Australian drug smugglers on death row is pictured outside Kerobokan prison in Denpasar. AFP photo
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said she felt devastated as the pair prepared to leave their Bali jail for execution.
“These two men have been in jail for over 10 years, they have paid for their crime and are still paying for their crime, that is as it should be,” Bishop told the Macquarie Radio Network.
“I do not believe they should pay with their lives.”
Bishop indicated there would be fallout if Indonesian authorities pushed ahead with the planned executions.
“I am sure that Indonesia understands it will have consequences.”
The transfer to Nusakambangan is the one the Sydney pair and their families had been dreading since being sentenced to death for the failed 2005 Bali Nine heroin smuggling plot.
The men’s lawyers say they had just lodged an appeal in a Jakarta administrative court that would ordinarily give his clients the right to a two-week schedule of hearings.
The pair will get 72 hours’ notice of their executions.
Lawyer Peter Morrissey said the Australians were going through a “very serious” process of dealing with the news they might be at the end of their lives.
Chan and Sukumaran were handling it, he said: “But they don’t have much choice”.
“They’re coming to terms with that and trying to make sure their community around them and families are with them, supporting them and not too upset,” he told ABC TV.
“It’s a very raw time for them.”
