Indonesian court rejects appeal by death row Australian Chan

An Indonesian court on Monday rejected an appeal by an Australian drug smuggler facing imminent execution.
The State Administrative Court in Jakarta ruled against the appeal by Andrew Chan, whose lawyers had lodged a rare challenge to the president's rejection of his plea for clemency.
"The appeal by the challenger is rejected," said presiding judge Ujang Abdullah. He upheld the original decision by the court in February to dismiss the challenge.
The court had decided that it did not have the authority to rule on President Joko Widodo's rejection of clemency appeals because this was the president's prerogative.
After the decision on Chan, judges started handing down a ruling on Myuran Sukumaran.
Chan and Sukumaran, the ringleaders of the so-called "Bali Nine" drug trafficking gang, were sentenced to death in 2006 for trying to smuggle heroin out of Indonesia.
Widodo recently rejected their pleas for presidential clemency, typically the final chance to avoid the firing squad.
They are expected to be executed soon with other drug convicts, including foreigners from France, Brazil, the Philippines, Nigeria and Ghana.
Jakarta has said that it will wait for legal appeals to be resolved before putting the group to death at the same time. Some other convicts have lodged Supreme Court appeals, which could take weeks to resolve.