Bali Nine are not guilty of exporting drugs because they were arrested before they boarded a plane

Bali Nine are not guilty of exporting drugs because they were arrested before they boarded a plane, a former Indonesian Supreme Court judge has told the ringleaders’ final appeal.

Yahya Harahap on Friday told the Denpasar District Court he believed that because the Australians’ eight kilograms of heroin never left Indonesia’s customs area, they should not have been found guilty under Indonesian law of drug exportation.

The Bali Nine couriers were arrested after going through immigration, but before boarding their flight to Australia.

“When someone wants to export drugs from a customs area, it must be determined where the customs area actually is,” Mr Harahap told the panel of three judges.

“Getting something through customs means a person has to have taken it out of the last post in the customs area.

“When it’s still in the customs area, it is said that the departure of the goods is not complete, the export has not yet taken place.”

Mr Harahap was giving evidence at the final appeal, known as a judicial review, of ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, who are on death row.

Mr Harahap said people who attempted but failed to carry out a crime, such as the Bali Nine, should not be punished as severely as those who actually completed a crime.

Siswanto, the head of Bali’s Kerobokan Prison where the nine Australians are imprisoned, also testified on Friday.