Australian Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran (L) are escorted by police
Australian Andrew Chan (R) and Myuran Sukumaran (L) are escorted by police as they arrive for their appeal hearing in Denpasar District Court in Indonesia's resort island of Bali September 21, 2010. They are members of a group known as the Bali Nine, arrested in April 2005 in Bali with 8.3 kg (18 lb) of heroin strapped to their bodies. Chan and Sukumaran were sentenced to death in 2006. They requested for a judicial review for their death sentence to be reduced to 20 years jail. REUTERS/Murdani Usman

Andrew Chan’s prison inmate in Bali has offered to die in his place. Indonesia earlier rejected the clemency plea for the Australian Bali Nine offender.

One of the prisoners who want to face the firing squad in Chan’s place is 32-year-old Rico Richardo. He wrote a letter to Indonesian President Joko Widodo and described how Chan had helped him out during a medical emergency. He wrote that he had almost died in Kerobokan prison on Jan. 23.

According to Richardo, it was Chan who insisted that he should be taken back to hospital. When Chan came to know that Richardo did not have enough money to pay hospital bills, he apparently asked his lawyer to help the inmate. The prisoner wrote that Mr Widodo was "seeing with just one eye" while deciding Chan’s future.

Richardo wrote that Chan was a selfless person despite what he was supposed to face in recent future. "Even though Andrew Chan is on death row … he never thinks of himself,” The Sydney Morning Herald quotes him, “This could be taken into consideration of your conscience, honourable Mr President." Richardo further wrote that he, an Indonesian citizen, was ready to take Chan’s place and be executed if the Indonesian president still insisted on executing the Australian drug convict.

When Chan’s lawyer Julian McMahon visited the prison on Jan. 23, he found Chan to be missing. However, he soon found out Chan was cradling Richardo whose arm had got paralysed. McMahon said that Chan had gone ahead with helping Richardo even though he was told that he had lost his clemency plea.

Richardo is, however, not the only one to offer his life in Chan’s life. He is one of nine inmates at Kerobokan prison, who have so far appealed to Mr Widodo for sparing the lives of Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. Martin Jamanuna, another prisoner, expressed his desire to take Chan’s place for the firing squad.

One more inmate named Stefanus Mehang described Chan and Sukumaran in a letter as "down to earth ... simple and extraordinary." He wrote in his letter that the inmates learned something together almost every day. They share the bible and at times learn to cook from Chan, he wrote. Mehang asked for forgiveness for Chan and Sukumaran stating that they were just humans despite “their mistake they did in the past.”

Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@IBTimes.com.au