Two Australian drug traffickers serving 20 years in jail on Bali received sentence cuts yesterday as part of Indonesia’s Independence Day celebrations, an official said.
Schapelle Corby and Renae Lawrence received a five-month remission for “good behavior,” Bali’s Kerobokan prison chief Siswanto said.
“It’s confirmed they each received remission of five months. It’s the fourth time for Corby and fifth for Renae,” he said, adding the sentence cuts would total up to 17 months for Corby and 23 months for Lawrence.
Well-behaved prisoners traditionally receive sentence reductions on the nation’s Independence Day.
More than 58,000 prisoners, including militants, drug smugglers and people convicted of corruption, were granted remissions by the Justice and Human Rights Ministry, prison official Suherman said.
Corby, 33, was found guilty of trafficking 4.1kg of marijuana in 2005.
She has always maintained her innocence and claims international drug smugglers placed the marijuana in her luggage.
She submitted a clemency appeal to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono last month asking for a sentence reduction.
Her lawyers had asked that she be released on humanitarian grounds because of mental illness.
Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Australia supported the plea.
Indonesian Justice and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar confirmed yesterday that the appeal had been sent to Yudhoyono, but refused to give details.
Siswanto said the remission and her clemency appeal were separate matters.
“Remission is granted on the occasion of Independence Day ... there’s no relation to her clemency appeal, which will be decided by the president,” he said.
Lawrence, 33, is one of the so-called “Bali Nine,” a group of Australians convicted over a plot to smuggle 8.3kg of heroin from Bali into Australia in 2005.
Five gang members are serving life sentences and three others that are on death row have filed a final appeal for their sentences to be reduced to 20 years.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to