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Corby, Lawrence get jail sentences cut |
Updated Fri Aug 15, 2008
Indonesia traditionally gives remissions every Independence Day. (AFP: Sonny Tumbelaka)
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Indonesia will cut the sentences of over 55,000 prisoners on Sunday to mark Independence Day, although inmates convicted for terrorism, corruption, drugs or illegal logging will be excluded, an official said.
But despite being convicted for drugs, the remissions will apply to Australians Schapelle Corby and Renae Lawrence, both facing long jail terms for drug trafficking in Bali, said Untung Sugiono, Director General of State Penitentiaries.
He said this was because the new rules on exclusions for remissions would only apply for court verdicts after October last year.
Indonesia traditionally gives remissions every Independence Day on August 17 and also on some religious holidays.
Similar remissions in the past have caused anger after some inmates convicted of having a role in bomb attacks by Islamic militants received reduced jail terms.
At the start of August, there were 137,054 convicts and detainees behind bars in Indonesia, the official said.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said his annual state of the union speech on Friday that his government was strongly committed to fighting corruption, terrorism and drugs.
- Reuters
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Corby's Indonesian sentence cut by three months |
Australia's Schapelle Corby is among Indonesian prisoners to get a reduced prison term. [ABC]
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Updated Fri Aug 15, 2008
Indonesia will cut three months off the 20-year sentence imposed on Australian drug trafficker Schapelle Corby as part of independence day celebrations this weekend.
Yon Suharyono, the head of the Kerobokan penitentiary where Corby is being held, says it will be the second time authorities have cut the 31-year-old's sentence after it was reduced by a month in 2006.
The former beauty therapist was found guilty in 2005 of trafficking 4.1 kilograms of marijuana to Indonesia.
She claims international smugglers placed the drugs in her luggage.
Many Australians believe her claims of innocence and see the sentence as harsh.
The only female member of the so-called "Bali Nine" ring of Australian heroin traffickers, Renae Lawrence, will also have four months cut off her 20-year sentence.
The group's three ring-leaders, Scott Rush, Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, are on death row in Indonesia.
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