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Australian jailed in Bali for selling cocaine
DENPASAR, Indonesia, Feb 27, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – An Australian man charged
with selling cocaine in Bali was jailed for more than five years on
Wednesday.
A court on the Indonesian resort island handed down the sentence to
Brendon Luke Johnson, arrested last year with almost 12 grams of cocaine
hidden at his rental home.
Johnson, who is reportedly 43, and his Indonesian girlfriend Remi Purwanti
were each given five years and four months in prison by the Bali court.
Foreigners are regularly arrested for drugs offences in Bali, which
attracts millions of visitors to its palm-fringed beaches every year.
Indonesia has some of the world’s toughest anti-drug laws and traffickers
can be sentenced to death.
Earlier this year, a Tanzanian man was arrested in Bali for trafficking
after more than a kilogram of methamphetamine was found in plastic baggies
inside his stomach, according to police.
In Lombok, an island next to Bali, Frenchman Felix Dorfin is facing a
possible death sentence case.
He was caught in September allegedly carrying a false-bottomed suitcase
filled with four kilogrammes (8.8 pounds) of drugs — including cocaine,
ecstasy and amphetamines — at the airport.
Several foreigners and Indonesians have been executed by firing squad in
recent years, including Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran in 2015.
The accused ringleaders of the Bali Nine drug syndicate were caught
attempting to smuggle heroin from Indonesia to Australia.
BSS/AFP/RY/1920 hrs