T

he executions that have been planned for this week have triggered a response from the family of a Bali Nine member, Myuran Sukumaran, who was executed on Nusakambangan prison island last year. The mother of Sukumaran, Raji Sukumaran, sent an open letter to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo on Wednesday, pleading with the President to stop the executions.

Myuran Sukumaran was shot to death in the Jokowi administration’s second round of executions in April last year, along with his fellow Bali Nine member Andrew Chan and the others convicted of various drug-related crimes. Sukumaran and Chan had been detained in Kerobokan Penitentiary for almost 10 years before their deaths. They were two of nine Australians, the Bali Nine, convicted of attempting to smuggle more than 8 kilograms of heroin from Bali to Australia in 2005. The other members of the Bali Nine were variously sentenced to 20 years imprisonment and to life and are now serving their sentences in several penitentiaries on Bali and Java.

“I desperately wanted to write to you as I have been hearing that you are ordering the death of more people. I don’t know these people or their crimes. I don’t know their family, friends, or children. I do know my son, who you brutally took from me last year as he was executed in the most horrible way,” Raji Sukumaran wrote in the letter she sent to Jokowi via the Indonesian embassy in Canberra and shared with the media.

Sukumaran demanded Jokowi grant mercy to those people who were due to be executed, saying they have family and relatives. “I am writing to you today to again ask for mercy: Please do not kill these men and women. They are someone’s son, daughter, father, mother, sister, brother, friend,” she wrote.

Sukumaran recalled the memory of the last day she met her son and the other convicts and how she struggled to say goodbye. “I had the chance just before their deaths to meet some of the others you executed last year. I know they were also very remorseful and had spent a long time paying for their crimes. I have been thinking of them and their helpless families as we waited together,” she said.

“When I heard your government was talking of the execution last year I never thought it would be carried out. Even after my son was given three days to live, I still did not think you could be so cruel and let them carry out the execution,” Sukumaran added.

She stressed that her son was a good person and he just got caught up with bad companion when he was young. “I have been reading my son’s journals, which he had kept for the last 10 years in prison. Myu was so sorry. He had so much regret and wanted to do better and make up for his mistakes. It makes me so sad that he was not given the chance. He had expressed his gratitude for your government’s prison system for allowing him to do so many positive things in the prison to better himself and so many Indonesian people. I know so many people who are also so sad he is no longer there to help. Many prisoners looked to him for support,” Sukumaran said.

Myuran Sukumaran, she added, had already served 10 years in prison and he would have happily served the rest of his life helping so many more people. “Myu wanted so much to live and he did not deserve to die. I want to talk to him about so many things every day but I cannot. I want to ask him about so many things but I cannot. In our last days he wanted so much to be strong for us and we had to show him that we were strong, He held his sister and brother’s hand the whole time we were there. We were all so scared and so sad. We never got to say all we wanted to say.

“You are the only person who has the power to prevent another execution. I can’t believe you would want to see mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, children and grandparents grieving for their loved ones. Please don’t let these families go through what we have gone through.”