Two Iranians found guilty of smuggling 40 kilograms of methamphetamine in Indonesia have had their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment.

The Bandung High Court said in its decision that sentencing was not about revenge, but a form of education so that in the future the defendant wouldn't conduct another criminal act, according to news website Rappler.

This ruling is at odds with Indonesian president Joko Widodo's repeated claims that the death penalty for drug felons is a necessary "shock therapy" for a country facing a drug emergency.

Ten drug offenders, including Bali nine organisers Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, are facing imminent death by firing squad in Indonesia.

The date has not yet been fixed but the Attorney-General said it would be unseemly to kill them while the Asian African conference was being held this week.

The Iranians, Mosavipour bin Sayed Abdollah​, 36, and Moradalivand bin Moradali​, 32, were arrested by the National Narcotics Agency on February 26, 2014.

They were caught picking up the methamphetamines in bags which had been buried in the Tangkuban Perahu Nature Reserve in West Java.

The Iranians were sentenced to death in January, even though the prosecutors only sought sentences of 15-20 years.

However the death penalty was overruled by the Bandung High Court on March 30, according to the decision published on the court website on Monday.

The inconsistency of the application of the law in Indonesia is deeply distressing for those on death row and one of the reasons advanced for the abolition of capital punishment.

Meanwhile, one of the ten felons on death row, Nigerian Raheem Agbaje Salami, had his appeal thrown out of the Administrative Court on Monday.

The court said clemency was the prerogative of the president and it did not have the jurisdiction to rule on the matter.

This was the same reason given in a similar appeal mounted by lawyers for Chan and Sukumaran.

A man purporting to be Raheem Agbaje Salami, from the southern Spanish city of Cordova, was arrested in 1998 smuggling 5.3 kilograms of heroin into Surabaya, Indonesia's second largest city.

However Raheem's passport was false. His real name is Jamiu Owolabi Abashin, a Nigerian national. And although he was arrested 17 years ago, Indonesian authorities continue to use the fake name in prison on Nusakambangan.

Raheem's lawyer, Utomo Karim, argued the prosecution of his case was illegal because his fake identity was used from his arrest to his conviction in the district court right through to the rejection of his clemency plea.

Mr Utomo is considering lodging a request for a judicial review of his client's case in another court.

However he said funding it was a problem because the Nigerian Embassy can't help pay for it.

With Karuni Rompies