Wild legal twist after Bali Nine members return home for first time
There’s been a wild twist in the remaining Bali Nine members returning to their home states, with police confirming they are “aware” of an outstanding arrest warrant.
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Police have confirmed they are “aware” Bali Nine member Scott Rush has an outstanding arrest warrant dating back to 2005.
A Queensland Police spokesperson told NewsWire they were “aware of the warrants for a 39-year-old man in relation to outstanding matters and are in contact with his legal representation”.
“For privacy and operational reasons, it is inappropriate to provide further comment on the matter,” they said.
When Rush was taken into custody in 2005, Queensland Police issued a warrant for his arrest for allegedly stealing just less than $5000 from the Commonwealth Bank.
It comes as the remaining Bali Nine members are returning to their home states for the first time since their transfer from an Indonesian prison.
After landing in Darwin on Sunday – touching down on Australian soil for the first time in 20 years – four of the five remaining members then flew to their home states of Queensland, NSW and Victoria on Friday morning.
However, Rush was not one of the passengers on board the flight home to Brisbane and his whereabouts remain unconfirmed, The Australian has reported.
Queensland Police could neither confirm nor deny Rush’s current location.
The eight men and one woman were arrested in 2005 for attempting to smuggle 8.7kg heroin into Australia.
The ringleaders of the drug smuggling plot were Andrew Chan, then 21, and Myruan Sukumara, aged 23 at the time of the arrest.
Accomplices included Matthew Norman, 18, Scott Rush, 18, Michael Czugaj, 19, Si Yi Chen, 20, Tan Duc Than Nguyen, 22, Renae Lawrence, 27, and Martin Stephens, 28.
After spending nearly 20 years behind bars in an Indonesian prison, the remaining five members returned to Australia on Sunday, following a top-secret deal between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto.
The men landed in Darwin on Sunday and spent several days in the Howard Springs quarantine facility, where they stayed until Thursday, ready for their flights back home.
Two of the five members landed in Brisbane in the early hours of Friday morning, another two touched down in Melbourne and the final member landed in Sydney.
Two other remaining members, Chen and Norman boarded a flight from Darwin to Melbourne at midnight, arriving shortly after 6.30am Friday.
It’s understood Norman, the youngest member of the Bali Nine, will move into a waterfront mansion in Torquay in Victoria’s southwest after landing in Melbourne.
The two-storey four-bedroom home is valued at more than $4m and is located above the popular Cosy Corner beach in Torquay, about 27km south of Geelong.
Norman is believed to have developed a relationship with the property owners Ann and Alan Wilkins while in prison; the couple formed a close bond with Chan, one of the ringleaders of the Bali Nine who was executed in 2015, regularly visiting him inside prison, mentoring him and helping him with his faith while behind bars.
“It’s been an interesting journey,” Mr Wilkins told the Geelong Advertiser about Norman’s arrival. “I can’t really make much more of a comment at this stage.”
Bali Nine member Czugaj was spotted boarding a flight from Darwin to Brisbane on Friday morning.
Wearing a mask, blue shirt and khaki trousers, flanked by AFP officers and refusing to speak to media, Czugaj stood at the back of the plane, quietly sipping a beer
Rush was also on the flight home to Brisbane.
The final member, Stephens, is on the flight back home to Sydney, arriving on Friday morning at Kingsford Smith Airport and surrounded by AFP officers as he walked off the tarmac and to his car.
The Bali Nine
In 2005, eight men and one woman were arrested for attempting to smuggle 8.7kg heroin into Australia, after the Australian Federal Police (AFP) tipped off the Indonesian police.
Those arrested included ringleaders Chan, then 21, and Sukumara, 23, and accomplices Norman, 18, Rush, 18, Czugaj, 19, Chen, 20, Nguyen, 22, Lawrence, 27, and Stephens, 28.
The two ringleaders of the smuggling scheme, Sukumara and Chan, were given the death penalty and executed by firing squad in 2015.
The remaining members were given life sentences. Lawrence, the only female member of the Bali Nine, had her life sentence commuted to 20 years’ jail, and was released in 2018. She was immediately deported back to Australia following her release.
Nguyen died of stomach cancer at the age of 34 in a Jakarta prison hospital in May 2018.
The transfer of the remaining members was part of a top-secret deal between Mr Albanese and Mr Subianto. The Prime Minister confirmed there was no “payback arrangement” with the Indonesian government.
Originally published as Wild legal twist after Bali Nine members return home for first time
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