Bali Nine: Myuran Sukumaran's close friends 'dumbfounded' by clemency refusal for death row inmates

Bali Nine inmate Myuran Sukumaran's close friends have described him as "a man who is staring down the barrel of a gun", as Indonesia transferred him and fellow Australian Andrew Chan to Nusakambangan, the island where they will be executed.

Sukumaran and Chan were taken before dawn on Wednesday morning from their home of 10 years — Bali's Kerobokan prison — and transported in armoured vehicles to Nusakambangan, where they are due to be shot by firing squad.

"Narcotics threaten everyone: Whoever, whenever, wherever. Eradicate Narcotics," the Bahasa Indonesian sign at the prison gates read as they went through.

Aaron Eisler visited Sukumaran last month and has known him and his family since he was nine.

"I'm shattered. I don't know what else to say," an emotional Mr Eisler told 7.30.

"We all hope and we all cling to hope and so does he, but at the end of the day, he knows what's hovering over his head, he knows the Damocles Sword is just dangling there, you know?"

Clutching her chest, Kavita Krishnan, who has been friends with Sukumaran since they were teenagers, said she hoped he knew how much he was supported by his friends, family and the Australian community.

"I hope he feels the love and how much everyone respects him," she said.

"And how highly people think of him."

Mr Eisler said the Sukumaran family, which has been a pillar of strength despite the circumstances, were now finding it "unfathomable" that "Myu" could be lost to them within days.

"You can see that they're just a shattered family unit," he said.

"It's hard, really, to describe the sadness and the grief that's running through that family when you take someone as pivotal away from them as Myu is to that family."

He said during his stay at Kerobokan that his friend, who would speak Bahasa to the guards, would frequently bring them to tears.

"To bring your guards to tears, you know surely is the mark of someone who is worth saving," Mr Eisler said.

Ms Krishnan said she was just "dumbfounded" by the fact that two thoroughly rehabilitated men had not been granted clemency.

Execution during ongoing legal process a 'miscarriage of justice'

The Indonesian state has been unbending, despite the fact that a legal administrative appeal is still on foot.

Chan's girlfriend and his brother Michael were refused entry to the prison on Wednesday morning, wanting to say their goodbyes in his Kerobokan cell.

"We're up against raw power," Chan and Sukumaran's barrister Peter Morrissey said.

"And if they shoot these two boys, while there's a legal process in place, what we are being told is raw power is what wins."

The pair's Indonesian lawyer, Todong Mulya Lubis, said: "What is the point of having all this legal recourse available, provided to you by the law, if they don't respect that?

"That is a miscarriage of justice."

Indonesia is yet to set a date for the pair's execution, but Indonesian attorney-general Muhammad Prasetyo is required to give 72 hours' notice.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was on Wednesday still appealing to the Indonesian Government.

"I will not give up hope. I will continue to make representations," she said.

"I will do whatever I can to seek a change of heart, a change of mind."

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he would "never rest" in his "determination to let Indonesia know that we oppose the death penalty".

However, he was more despondent about whether that would have any effect on the Indonesian Government.

"There were some suggestions earlier that perhaps at least some people in the Indonesian system were having second thoughts, but I'm afraid those signals seem to be dissipating," Mr Abbott said.

Undertaker describes tending to bodies of executed people

Across the water in the town of Cilacap, the Christian undertaker who will provide the coffins for the executions spoke to 7.30.

Suhendro Putro will also bathe the bodies of Chan and Sukumaran after they are executed.

He keeps his coffins in a small back room behind the church in central Cilacap.

Six weeks ago, Mr Putro prepared the caskets and tended to the bodies of the last six drug traffickers executed at Nusakambangan by Indonesia.

He was summoned by text message to a meeting point at 9:00pm (local time) on the night of the execution and at 10:00pm was taken to Sodong, the part of the island where the execution took place, just up the hill from the room where he waited.

"We knew the execution was taking place when members of their families started crying, of course, because they were sad," Mr Putro told 7.30.

"I heard only one loud shot sound at a time, which was fired by the whole squad team. Multiple shots but only one bullet.

"And [when I saw the prisoners afterwards], there was only one mark, one hole, in the chest."

While there is a full firing squad, all but one has blanks, so they do not know who has the bullet that kills the prisoner.

"How did I feel? Of course I was sad," Mr Putro said.

"Because in this case, we and they knew what day it was going to happen, only not the time.

"We were all sad, but what could we do?"

As well as supplying their coffins, Mr Putro and his team had the difficult task of bathing the prisoners' bodies.

"The thing is, when I bathed these prisoners, when I saw the faces of the corpses, I didn't see a sad face or pain. They looked so serene and happy," he said.

"And it was very different from when I have bathed bodies of other people who died from sickness — they looked pained.

"I don't know why these prisoners were different — maybe it was because the priests had just prayed for them, they looked happy.

"Talking about sadness, indeed it is sad to bathe the corpse of a person who was shot instead of a person who was sick or had been in an accident - that's normal.

"But I have to do this. It is my duty."

When asked whether it made him feel that life was fragile and short, Mr Putro said it was difficult to adequately express his feelings.

"[But] this person has died and we have to go through rituals and to prepare them to meet God," he said.

"And they have to look beautiful. So basically, I'm ready to do this. I'm ready to follow orders."

Despite his strong Christian faith, Mr Putro does not necessarily oppose the death penalty.

Like many Indonesians, he has been convinced by president Joko Widodo's rhetoric that the country is in a drugs emergency and his children and grandchildren must be protected.

"It's very difficult to comment on these matters, but if the decision comes from our [president] and the attorney-general also makes that decision, then I simply agree," he said.