By Bob Allen
Two Australian drug traffickers shot by a firing squad in Indonesia refused blindfolds and sang “Amazing Grace” as they were taken to a jungle clearing to be executed, according to their spiritual adviser.
Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, members of a drug cartel known as the Bali Nine, died early April 29 along with six other death row prisoners on the Nusakambangan prison island in Central Java.
Indonesia carried out the executions despite intense international pressure and threatened the country’s diplomatic relations with Australia.
Rob Buckingham, senior minister of Bayside Church, a non-denominational Pentecostal congregation in the Melbourne suburb of Carrum Downs, told Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Religion and Ethics Report that Sukumaran was particularly adamant about not wanting to be blindfolded.
“He said, ‘I want to look my executioners in the eye,’” the pastor said.
Buckingham described it as a declaration of their faith.
“Andrew’s faith is very well known,” he said. “He’s an ordained pastor. He’s been studying toward that over many years. He’s effectively been leading the church inside Kerobokan Prison now for a number of years.”
“Myu by his nature has been a quieter person, but in more recent times has become very deep in his faith as a Christian,” he continued. “I think for both of them the strength of their faith came shining through. They realized that they have done the wrong thing in the past. They accepted the fact that they were caught and incarcerated. They’ve both completely reformed their own lives and were working very strongly at reforming others.”
Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel Tina and Jonathan Bailey had firsthand knowledge of Sukumaran’s faith through a prison arts program in Indonesia, where they have served since 1996. Baptist News Global’s Jeff Brumley profiled Tina Bailey’s work with the Bali Nine in February.
Buckingham said all the two men or anyone else was asking was that they be left in prison for the rest of their lives so they could continue their work of helping to reform and rehabilitate other prisoners.
“With that taken away from them,” he said, “it’s like, ‘You guys, you are doing the wrong thing by taking our lives. And we will not give you any satisfaction by showing any level of weakness even in our last moments.’”
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