(Transcript from SBS World News Radio)
Reports out of Indonesia say Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran have been executed.
Indonesian officials have yet to make a formal announcement but media in the country say the executions took place just after 3:30am Australian Eastern Standard Time.
They were reportedly killed along with six other death row prisoners on Nusakambangan island.
Indonesia has confirmed that the only woman in the group has been given a reprieve.
Manny Tsigas reports.
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As the crowd swelled with media and locals at the port of Cilacap, which leads to the prison island of Nusakambangan, word spread that the scheduled executions had gone ahead as planned.
After legal avenues seemed exhausted and personal pleas to Indonesian President Joko Widodo were brushed aside, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran appear to have finally met their fate.
Within minutes Andrew Chan's brother, Michael, tweeted: "I have just lost a courageous brother to a flawed Indonesian legal system. I miss you already. RIP my Little Brother."
The members of the so-called Bali Nine had been sentenced to death in 2006 after being found guilty of attempting to smuggle more than eight kilograms of heroin into Australia.
Journalist Mark Davis has covered the case since 2010 and had met Chan and Sukumaran on numerous occassions.
Just moments after reports of their death had come through his response during an interview with the ABC was emotional, but blunt.
"It's a disgrace in my view. For all the people, and there were a good number of Australians cheering on the application of Indonesian law leading to their deaths, those people may have some satisafaction, but I think the bulk of Australians will be disgusted and not just saddened. Like I said earlier I was ready to be saddened but I was not ready to be angered. This is a huge injustice."
Phelim Kine is the Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch's Asia Division.
He told the ABC the case should persuade Indonesia to reconsider its stance on the death penalty.
"This is an absolute needless tragedy. This is a failure of leadership by the Indonesian government by pushing through this barbaric punishment on very specious grounds of dterrence which don't exist. We really hope the Indonesian government foes back to its unofficial moratorium on the use of capital and pushes towards abolition."
The Philippine Foreign Affairs Department has confirmed that the only woman in the group, Mary Jane Veloso, has been spared the firing squad for now.
She was sentenced to death in 2010 for attempting to smuggle more than two a half kilos of heroin into Indonesia.
The mother of two has since insisted she was duped into unknowingly acting as a drug mule.
But there are reports a woman has confessed to police in the Philippines that she was the ringleader of the narcotics operation that Mary Jane Veloso was accused of being part of, and that Mary Jane Veloso will be needed to testify against her.
Foreign Affairs spokesman Charles Jose says the Philippines government is relieved the execution was not carried out.
