Bali Nine duo ‘turned my life around’

Inspiring inmates ... Bali Nine Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran inside the workshop of Kerobokan jail in Bali. Picture: Supplied. Source: Supplied

CAHYA Xander was just 17 when he landed in Bali's Kerobokan jail.

Sentenced to six months for eight grams of marijuana he was put into the adult section with hardened criminals.

It was two men he had never met who came to help him — Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.

He is out now and so indebted does he feel toward the two Australians that he has set up a group called Youth Against the Death Penalty and yesterday in Bali began shooting a video clip to campaign for their lives.

Chan and Sukumaran took him under their wing, protected him and helped him in 2009, when he was sent to jail and now he is trying to help them in their darkest hours.

Mr Xander still visits the jail to see his mentors.

As the video clip was being shot, Mr Xander told how much good work Chan and Sukumaran are doing inside the jail to train and educate and help other prisoners.

"They are helping so many people, they are helping people stop taking drugs," he said.

And despite being on death row now for almost nine years, he said the Australians were always optimistic.

"Every single day they wake up and treated every day like it was the best day of their lives, they were very positive," he said.

"When I was 17 they were real role models," he said. They told him he would be free soon and to do something good with his life and not come back to jail.

"(The President) should come to the prison and see how they are making people's lives better. "

Dayu Alit is another former prisoner in the video. The 20-year-old first started learning painting in the jail, where she was serving a sentence, under the tutelage of Sukumaran.

"For Andrew and Myuran, the penalty is not appropriate. They have already changed. They changed not for themselves, but they have helped many people, helped other people," Ms Alit said.

"They have changed. The government should give them chance to get mercy," she said.

Ana Adriana, 55, another former prisoner, said that without Chan and Sukumaran he would not be the way he is. She was afforded so much opportunity for the future as a result of the educational courses they ran.

"Both Myuran and Andrew have given a lot of things for us. If not because of them, we will not be like we are now. They have given much education for our future," she said.

"They do not deserve to get the death sentence."

She said Sukumaran hated drugs and people who used drugs.

The video campaign, being shot in both English and Indonesian, aims to raise local awareness of the plight of Chan and Sukumaran and to illustrate the rehabilitation work they have undertaken in jail and the Indonesian prisoners they have helped.

It comes as the Indonesian President, Joko Widodo, again reiterated his no mercy policy when it comes to drugs and the Bali Nine lawyers lodged a new lawsuit in the State Administrative Court in Jakarta against the President.

The Attorney General however says the legal challenge will not halt the impending executions of the two Australians and six others, of whom have been denied clemency.

No date has been set.

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