Axl Rose’s Public Plea To Pardon The Bali Nine Is Silenced By Gunshot

Axl Rose made a very public plea to the Indonesian President Joko Widodo yesterday to spare the lives of three members of the Bali Nine, but the Guns N’ Roses’ singer’s appeals fell on deaf ears, as Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were both executed by a firing squad earlier today.

The Bali Nine were arrested in 2005 for allegedly conspiring to smuggle heroin out of Denpasar.

A spokesperson for Axl Rose explained to Rolling Stone that the singer had originally wrote a letter to the Indonesian President akin for clemency for the Bali Nine, but then decided to post the letter on Facebook and make it public because Axl was “quite upset with such injustice.”

Axl Rose begins the letter, a copy of which he also sent to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, by beseeching the President to use his power to allow the world to ‘witness an extraordinary act of humanity.

“I appeal to you Mr. President, Mr. Joko Widodo to use your power…to show your country’s strength and allow the world to witness an extraordinary act of humanity and bravery on yours and your country’s part.”

In eloquent terms Axl then argues his case for the Bali Nine by pointing out how people can change their ways and learn from their mistakes and how it is forgiveness and mercy that make us human not judgment and condemnation.

“Their crimes were now long ago, their hearts and minds forever changed by their crimes. In a world where the bad often outweighs the good and evil and negativity would appear more and more prevalent we need and can use every person choosing to make a difference…. In doing so we show the entire world that we are capable of forgiveness and mercy, a much greater sense of courage, strength and humanity and being so much more than that which seeks to overcome and destroy us.”

“People make mistakes, sometimes big and horribly regrettable mistakes and sometimes more importantly people learn from their mistakes and make new choices, strive and succeed at true positive change. To not acknowledge and give such change the opportunity to prove it’s value would seem in this case a greater crime than those originally committed.”

Axl Rose visited Indonesia in 2012 with Guns N’ Roses for a gig that Rose described as “very special and exciting.” He thanks Widodo for his country’s hospitality and then asks that he pardons Australian nationals Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran and Filipina Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso.

“That these individuals must die purely as an example to others is in my opinion akin to a kidnapper or terrorist killing hostages to make their point and have their demands met. In carrying out their death sentences the example shown here is one of draconian justice where the punishment in this stage of the condemned’s lives by virtue of their rehabilitation and genuine remorse over all these years no longer fits the original crime.”

Axl suggests that not sparing the prisoners’ lives would be a “cold, cruel and uncaring message of hopelessness.”

He asked Widodo, who recently described Indonesia as facing a “national emergency” in terms of drug abuse, not to be “blinded by rigidity and inflexibility.”

Axl then calls the death sentences of the Bali Nine as “draconian” and the act of killing them “barbaric, backward and truly disgraceful.”

Rose closes the letter by informing Widodo that “You’ve made your point and struck fear in both the hearts and minds of the condemned and anyone even remotely considering bad choices or already involved in those worlds.”

Despite ending with the sentence, “Life is the only thing important now, not death but life.” Axl’s plea for clemency was only extended to Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso, who did manage to win a last-minute reprieve.

Chan and Sukumaran, alongside six others, were executed just after midnight on Wednesday.

(Image Via Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)