- They had been on death row over a heroin smuggling plot for 10 years
- Australian pair met their families today and Chan married his fiancée
- They were shot dead by firing squads comprising 12 police privates
Indonesia, Apr 29 (Daily Mail) : Bali Nine ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran have been killed by an Indonesian firing squad, local media is reporting.The Jakarta Post reported Chan, 31, Sukumaran, 33, and six other prisoners were taken to a jungle clearing on the island Nusakambangan.
They were shot dead by firing squads comprising 12 police privates shortly after midnight (6pm BST).
Officials ignored agonised pleas for clemency from the prisoners' families and Australian and international officials and an outstanding constitutional court hearing.
There are reports Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso, the Filipino drug mule, was spared after new information emerged about her case.
The Australian duo were accompanied by their nominated spiritual advisers in some of their final moments, although it is understood they did not witness the executions.
Sukumaran had pledged to face the firing squad with 'strength and dignity' and was planning to go without a blindfold. Their last meal was KFC.
Daily Mail Australia has been told the grim task officially informing the families will fall to Australia's Consul-General, Majell Hind.
An Australian representative will accompany the bodies as they are taken by road to Jakarta later today.
A British grandmother, Lindsay Sandiford, is expected to be executed within months.
The 58-year-old was sentenced to death two years ago after being caught with £1.6million of cocaine in her suitcase.
Mrs Sandiford, from Cheltenham, reportedly told a friend she was heartbroken at the news about Chan, who she is understood to have befriended in jail.
'If they kill someone as good as Andrew, what hope is there for me?' she said.
'I just want to get it over with. I feel like just giving up.'
She says she was coerced into smuggling vast quantities of cocaine from Bangkok to Bali by a crime syndicate.
The development came just hours after Sukumaran's mother, Raji, made a desperate appeal for her son's life to be spared.
Wracked with grief and despair, Raji could not disguise the pain she was enduring in the final moments before her son's death. But still she begged for mercy.
'I won't see my son again and they are going to take him tonight and shoot him and he is healthy and he is beautiful and he has a lot of compassion for other people,' she pleaded.
'I am asking the government not to kill him, please president, please don't kill him today. Please don't. Call off the execution.
'Please don't kill my son. Please don't.'
Despite her desperate pleas, her son was not spared by the Indonesian authorities.
Asked about a joint statement by the EU, France and Australia urging Indonesia to cease its executions, Attorney General HM Prasetyo cited Indonesia's legal sovereignty:
'That's what our laws decided. We say, our courts are open, fair and nothing is closed.
'We have explained that we're not against them [personally]. What we fight is the serious crime of drugs.
'We ask for prayers and support from everyone so that this unpleasant duty can be finished well, without any disturbances.'
President Joko Widodo had told the attorney general to 'proceed according to the rules'.
Sukumaran's brother Chinthu spent a few hours with his brother before bidding goodbye.
He said they talked about the death penalty and how the deaths would change nothing.
'He (the Indonesian president) knows this is just a waste. He knows this is not going to solve anything with drugs (smuggling),' said Chinthu.
'Drug trafficking will still be there. If these nine people die today, tomorrow, next week, next month, it is still not going to stop anything. I ask the president to please show mercy.
Chan and Sukumaran were part of the Bali Nine who were convicted in 2005 over a plot to smuggle around 18.2lbs of heroin from Indonesia to Australia.
The pair, as well as other death row inmates, had remained defiant in their final hours inside the prison on Indonesia's 'death island', where coffins were seen arriving earlier this evening.
Chan married his fiancée of less than three months inside the prison today. Their wedding was held just months after the drugs ringleader proposed to his girlfriend at Kerobokan Prison.
Leonard Arpan, lawyer for the two men, said he had lodged an appeal against the death sentences, but it did not stop the executions taking place.
Sukumaran was denied the opportunity to hug his mother goodbye after guards refused to remove his handcuffs, according to the Daily Telegraph.
The date of the executions became official when a local funeral director was instructed to inscribe the names of those to be shot by firing squad and the date of their deaths.
Chan and Sukumaran both refused to sign their execution warrants during official proceedings on Saturday, saying they believed it would be unjust to kill them.
Indonesia, which has now carried out 15 such executions in four months, has vowed to kill all of its 58 foreign drug convicts by the end of the year.
The chilling reenactment of how executions are carried out in Indonesia was broadcast to millions of viewers.
The Australian men were led from their isolated cells in Batu prison through the wildly dense tropical forest up a 3km steep winding track to a place called Nirbaya - or more appropriately known as Death Valley.
The date of the executions - April 29 - became official when a local funeral director in Cilacap was instructed to inscribe the names of those to be shot by firing squad and the date of their deaths