Norman, Lawrence, Stephens and Chan, the latter a supervisor with the company, all worked for Eurest, which provided hospitality services to the Sydney Cricket Ground, where the group was employed.
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) concluded that Sukumaran, Chan, Lawrence and Norman were part of a larger syndicate that successfully imported a commercial quantity of heroin into Australia from Indonesia on 23 October 2004.
During their stay, police noted the group would spend a large amount of time in their hotel rooms, although Rush and Czugaj went shopping, eating, drinking and played water sports.
She was believed to have left Bali on 18 April 2005, a day after the nine Australians were arrested, and was briefly detained at the Thai-Malaysian border, but released as the paperwork needed for her to be extradited to Indonesia was not available.
[11] Head of the surveillance team I Nyoman Gatra later testified in court during trials for the accused that police were initially unaware Sukumaran was part of the group, because original information obtained from the AFP did not mention him by name.
[15] Defence lawyers conceded that the four arrested at the airport were acting as drug couriers, but said they did it for the money to help their low-income families and because they were threatened with physical harm if they did not comply.
On 13 February 2006, Rush's parents gave an interview to the ABC TV program Australian Story, speaking out against AFP actions.
Rush's parents were quoted as saying:[19][20][21][22]"I was informed at 1.30 in the morning that Scott would be spoken to and asked not to board the flight to Bali.
When I received a call from the Australian Government authorities that Scott had been detained in Indonesia for attempting to export heroin, I was speechless, sickened to the gut.
"In an interview aired on the same episode of Australian Story, Mike Phelan of the AFP responded to the Rush family's criticisms and said:[19][23] "Even with the aid of hindsight, should the same set of circumstances present themselves again with another syndicate or other people, we would do exactly the same thing ... there have also been a large number of young lives on the other side of the ledger that have been saved as a result of the AFP's operations over many years."
If there was further information that had to be obtained from here through the Australian Federal Police, we would seek an assurance that Indonesia would not be wanting a death penalty in each of those cases.
Lawrence claimed that she received threats of harm against herself and her family if she did not proceed with the plan to import heroin into Australia and gave evidence in the Denpasar District Court that she was ordered to book a flight to Bali.
Her co-accused Stephens claimed he was also ordered, with threats, to travel to Bali by Chan, who showed him some photographs of his family going about their daily lives, saying that they would be killed if he did not co-operate.
Chan protested his innocence and defending his silence during his final plea, reading from a two-page statement:[31]"I didn't say anything in court because if I did, I'd be lying.
[33] On 14 February 2006, after learning of his fate, Sukumaran attacked photographers and threw water bottles at protesters and onlookers gathered outside the court building.
A former lawyer for Chan and Sukumaran declared that the original amount demanded was more than 1 billion rupiah (A$133,000), but two weeks before they were due to be sentenced, the "deal" failed and backfired, triggering a request for the death penalty.
[39] Julie Bishop, Australia's Minister for Foreign Affairs, expressed her concern over the allegations involving the questioning of the integrity of the judicial process.
On 6 September 2006, it was revealed that as a result of appeals brought by prosecutors and heard by the Supreme Court, Chen had the death penalty reimposed after his reduced sentence of life imprisonment was overturned.
There is no time limit for those convicted to request clemency from the President of Indonesia, but this requires an admission of guilt and had never been granted for a drug crime until 2009.
[55] In late January 2015, lawyers for Chan and Sukumaran filed an application for a judicial review into their cases;[72][73] which was rejected by the Denpasar District Court a few days later.
Filipina Mary Jane Veloso was given a last-minute stay of execution following a pending investigation initiated in her home country about a drug trafficking syndicate in which she is expected to testify.
The concert featured performances by Archibald Prize artist Ben Quilty, musicians Megan Washington, Josh Pyke, Kate Miller-Heidke, Paul Mac, Glenn Richards from Augie March, and The Presets' and Julian Hamilton; with media personalities Andrew Denton and his partner Jennifer Byrne and musician Missy Higgins who recorded video messages of support for Chan and Sukumaran.
[87][88] Julian Oldmeadow, an academic at Swinburne University in Melbourne expressed in a lecture following the executions of Chan and Sukumaran that he had planned to ask Indonesian international students to leave his class.
Lee was charged with drug trafficking and importation offences and appeared in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on 13 February 2006, the same day the first of the nine accused in Indonesia learned of their fate.
[96] Details of previous criminal convictions of some of the accused were not published during the trial to avoid harming legal defences in Indonesia.
Once the Denpasar District Court reached guilty verdicts and issued sentences, it was reported in the Australian media that members of the group had been convicted of offences in Australia before their arrests in Indonesia.
In December 2004 Rush pleaded guilty at the Inala Magistrates' Court in Queensland to 16 offences including drug possession, fraud, theft and drunk-driving.
[100] Amnesty International strongly condemned the executions of Chan and Sukumaran together with six other drug-related convicts on 29 April 2015, describing them as "reprehensible".
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott stated that the executions were "cruel and unnecessary", claiming both men had been "fully rehabilitated" during their detention in prison.
[106] On 15 December 2024, the five remaining members of the Bali Nine (Si Yi Chen, 39, Michael Czugaj, 38, Matthew Norman, 38, Scott Rush, 39, and Martin Stephens, 48) arrived back in Australia on a commercial Jetstar flight.