Indonesian court agrees to hear challenge by Australians on death row

Indonesia's Constitutional Court has agreed to consider a last-ditch legal challenge brought by two Australian inmates on death row, a lawyer representing the pair said on Monday, raising hopes that they would not be executed.

“For the Bali Nine [pair], we have the Constitutional Court appeal, we have the registration number and we have the schedule fixed on May 12,” said Leonard Arpan, lawyer for Australians Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan.

“We keep hoping that this ongoing legal process will be respected.”

Chan and Sukumaran, ringleaders of the so-called "Bali Nine" heroin-smuggling ring, were sentenced to death in 2006. The pair is among a group of foreigner convicts who were informed on Saturday that they would be executed within 72 hours.

Australia has mounted a diplomatic campaign to save the pair, but President Joko Widodo has vowed there will be no clemency for drug traffickers on death row in Indonesia. He says the country faces an emergency due to rising narcotics use.

Chan married his Indonesian girlfriend Febyanti Herewila Monday on the Indonesian prison island where he is set to be executed, his brother said, urging the country's president to show compassion to the newlyweds. 

"We've had a special day today," Michael Chan said as he announced the marriage after returning from a visit to the high-security Nusakambangan Island. "We've celebrated with some family and close friends.

"Hopefully the president will show some compassion, some mercy, so these two young people can carry on with their lives," he added. "It's in the president's hands."

Wire services