Jakarta Globe – AFP, Feb 27, 2015
Jakarta. An
Australian journalist was to be deported from Indonesia on Friday after being
caught covering the story of two Australian drug traffickers on death row
without the correct visa, immigration authorities said.
Candace
Sutton, a reporter for the Daily Mail, was taken in for questioning by
immigration officials on Wednesday as she interviewed a relative of one of the
Australian convicts at a hotel on Java.
The
interview was taking place in the port town of Cilacap, close to a prison
island where the traffickers Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan are to be put to
death.
The men,
ringleaders of the so-called “Bali Nine” drug smuggling gang, are facing
imminent execution after the president rejected their pleas for clemency,
typically a death row convict’s last chance of avoiding the firing squad.
No date has
been set for the executions.
Immigration
department spokesman Heriyanto said that Sutton “failed to show a journalist
visa” and had violated immigration laws by working while on a tourist visa that
she bought on arrival in Indonesia.
She will be
put on a flight late on Friday from Jakarta back to Sydney, authorities said.
The
Australians are among a group of foreigners, including a Frenchman and a
Brazilian, who are likely to be executed soon.
Canberra
has made repeated pleas for their citizens to be spared but Jakarta has
insisted it will push ahead with the executions.
The looming
executions have drawn global media attention, and hordes of journalists have
descended on Cilacap.
Agence France-Presse
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