This month, almost five years after the Bali Nine were picked up trying to smuggle 8.3kg of heroin from Bali to Australia, Rush will face his final appeal against the death sentence. His Indonesian lawyer, Robert Khuana, is optimistic the judicial review, called a PK, or Reconsideration, which failed in the Supreme Court in 2007, will this time save Rush from the firing squad. Leading a six-member team, Khuana will appear before a different panel of judges. He believes a sentence reduction, with Rush serving 10 to 15 years, is achievable.If the review fails, Rush's last avenue is to seek clemency from Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who is not known to be merciful to drug traffickers. Kevin Rudd could also make a clemency plea to the President, who is visiting Australia today. It is likely the death sentences of Rush and Bali Nine ringleaders Chan and Sukumaran, who will lodge appeals soon after Rush, will be discussed.
Rush's sentence remains an anomaly. Of the six couriers arrested at Denpasar airport in April 2005 by Indonesian authorities, Rush, who had 1.3kg of heroin strapped to his body, is the only one now sentenced to execution. Four others, Si Yi Chen, Matthew Norman, Michael Czugaj and Martin Stephens, are serving life sentences and Lawrence 20 years.
Khuana will argue that Rush was merely a courier while three others of the nine were "organisers" -- Chan, Sukumaran and Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, "the recruiter", whose death sentence was commuted to life in 2008.
Source: The Australian, March 8, 2010
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