Australian drug smugglers spared death in Indonesia: lawyer

Three Australians convicted of heroin smuggling in Indonesia have had their death sentences reduced to life imprisonment, their lawyer said Thursday.

Judges in Jakarta decided to spare the lives of three of the so-called "Bali Nine" gang of drug smugglers who tried to traffic heroin from the Indonesian resort island of Bali back to Australia in 2005.

"The Supreme Court made its ruling about four days ago and it commutes the death sentences for Si Yi Chen, Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen and Matthew Norman to life sentences," lawyer Erwin Siregar told AFP by telephone from Bali.

The three, now aged between 21 and 24, were arrested in a hotel room in Bali with a small quantity of heroin shortly after others in the gang were arrested at the island's airport.

The gang's three ring leaders, Scott Rush, Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, remain on death row, while the three other members are serving prison sentences ranging from life to 20 years.