No smile from Gibran or Iriana as Joko Widodo becomes president (Image via jakarta.coconuts.co)
Rifts develop as former Australian resident Gibran Rakabuming Raka, son of Indonesian President Joko Widodo, begs his father to spare the lives of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, who are now being readied for execution, writes contributing editor-at-large Tess Lawrence.
ON BEHALF OF HIS AUSTRALIAN MATES, Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, has again begged his father to spare the lives of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.
In a military style operation this morning, both men were taken from Bali’s Kerobokan Prison in a fortified convoy led by armoured vehicles flanked by police and militia for their doomed journey to “execution island” Nusa Kambangan.
There they will face a firing squad that might as well have been handpicked by the Australian Federal Police. Such is the blood on their hands.
It is little known that Gibran, who turns 28 in October, is a 2010 graduate of the University of Technology, Sydney.
Former fellow students, including Indonesian nationals and close friends living in Australia asked Gibran, the eldest of Widodo’s three children, to approach his father and implore him to reconsider his legally flawed blanket refusal to grant clemency to the “Bali Two” and the rest of the estimated 133 inmates on death row destined for execution.
