Today marks a year since Bali Nine duo Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed in Indonesia and the families of the two men are due to hold services to commemorate the somber occasion.
According to the SBS, Chan’s family have booked a Hillsong chapel in Sydney’s northwest on Friday while a private service is due to be held for Sukumaran on Saturday at the nearby DaySpring Church in Castle Hill.
Chan, 31, and Sukumaran, 34, were killed by firing squad with six other drug offenders on the island of Nusakambangan shortly after midnight on April 29, 2015, 10 years after they were caught smuggling heroin into Bali.
According to Andrew’s brother Michael Chan his family are still grieving the loss of their boy.
“(It) has been a roller coaster ride for the family to come to terms with the loss,” he told Reprieve Australia, a group fighting the death penalty.
“There has not been a day that has gone by that he is not in our thoughts. Countries need to look at ways to rehabilitate prisoners instead of executing them.”
Despite an intense public and political effort to try and save Andrew and Myuran – two men many believed had been rehabilitated in prison – the Australians were eventually put to death by the Indonesian government by gunfire – a killing that many of their supporters deemed cruel and senseless.
Febyanti Herewila, who wed Chan two days ahead of his execution, said it was her husband’s dying wish that the death penalty be abolished globally.
Both Andrew and Myuran became fully rehabilitated during their ten years in prison.
“People make mistakes especially when you are young like him,” she told Reprieve Australia.
“Also Andrew wants the young people from around the world to learn from his life.”
Andrew became a pastor while he was in prison – it’s believed he and Myruan were the two who began singing Amazing Grace when the death row inmates were lead out of their cells in the dark to face the firing squad.
Apart from being devoted to his newfound Christianity, Chan was an obsessive rugby league fan – a supporter of the Penrith Panthers.
Michael Chan – a Canterbury Bulldogs devotee – said the NRL season was yet another reminder of the loss of his brother.
“I miss the good old banter we used to have,” he says. “This time of year, he’d be telling me how good his team is. I’d be telling him how shit his team is.”
Since the Bali duo were killed there has been a mandate on executions and no one has been killed by firing squad in Indonesia, although according to Amnesty International 121 remain on death row.
This article originally appeared on The Australian Women’s Weekly
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