Close Indonesian police escort death row prisoner, Australian Myuran Sukumaran, in Cilacap in central Java on March 4, 2015 to a maximum security prison where he is expected to be executed. AFP
JAKARTA - Indonesia's security minister said Thursday that Jakarta would press ahead with the execution of two Australian drug smugglers and other foreign convicts, ruling out an offer of a prisoner swap put forward by Canberra.
"In accordance with the president's order, the death penalty handed to the convicts will still be conducted," Tedjo Edhy Purdijatno told reporters in Jakarta.
Attorney-General Muhammad Prasetyo was also cited in local media rejecting the offer.
"The offer is not balanced and relevant to what we are going to do," he told the Tempo news website.
He said that the foreign minister had told him about the offer, adding: "I said the offer was hard to fulfil and need not be considered."
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop proposed the swap in an 11th-hour bid to save Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, the ringleaders of the so-called "Bali Nine" drug smuggling gang, who were sentenced to death for trying to traffick heroin out of Indonesia.
The pair were moved on Wednesday to the Indonesian island where they are due to be executed and could face a firing squad within days. - AFP
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