These are the Aussies spending Christmas in jail
Bali Nine drug mule Renae Lawrence will celebrate her first Christmas as a free woman after almost 14 years behind bars, but dozens of her fellow Aussies will be languishing in cells around the world.
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Bali Nine heroin courier Renae Lawrence will this year celebrate her first Christmas as a free woman after almost 14 years behind bars in Bali.
Victorian man, Edward Norman Myatt, convicted for drug trafficking, is also enjoying his first festive season outside a jail in almost seven years after being freed from Bali’s Kerobokan prison on December 15.
But others, like Sunshine Coast man Brendon Luke Johnsson, are spending their first Christmas in Bali jails after their arrests earlier this year.
And those on life sentences in Indonesia — the remaining five members of the Bali Nine — face an uncertain future and many more years behind bars with their most recent applications for a sentence reprieve having been denied by the authorities.
According to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade a total of 1540 Australians were arrested overseas in the last financial year, down from 1641 arrests the previous year. Immigration detention, where Australians are denied entry to a country or have breached visa conditions, accounted for 385 of these cases.
MORE: Renae Lawrence ‘depressed’ since leaving jail
MORE: Australian man in Bali court on drug charges
The top five countries for arrest and detention of Australians were United States (241 arrests), Thailand (122 arrests), China (113 arrests), UAE (95 arrests) and Japan (71 arrests).
This was the first time Japan has been the top five countries for arrest and detention cases.
During the year there were 386 Australians in prisons around the world. On June 30 year the figure was 237 in prison.
Most of these were fraud and drug cases.
DFAT says that 50 of these cases were in China, 45 were in the United States (half of which were related to sex offences), 40 were in Vietnam (drugs), 31 were in New Zealand and related to assault, sexual assault or drugs and 30 were drug-related cases in Indonesia.
And while Australians jailed in Indonesia on drugs charges regularly make the news, the top five countries worldwide for drug-related arrests of Australians in the past year were China, Japan, Thailand, UAE and Vietnam.
DFAT says that in the past financial year, 19 Australians were arrested on drug-related charges in Japan, up 171 per cent on the previous year.
“This reflects Japan’s increasing popularity as an affordable travel destination and also its strict law enforcement,” DFAT says.
In China in the past financial year, 19 Australians were arrested on drugs charges while 16 were arrested in Thailand, 13 in the UAE and 13 in Vietnam.
Renae Lawrence, now 41, was freed from Bali’s Bangli jail on November 21 this year, after serving 13 years and seven months of her 20-year sentence for heroin smuggling. Lawrence was one of the Bali Nine, who were arrested in April 2005 and convicted of attempting to smuggle 8.2kg of heroin from Bali to Australia.
She became the first of the nine to be freed from jail, having received the lowest sentence. She has returned to her family home in Newcastle where she is now attempting to build a life for herself outside prison and this will be her first Christmas as a free woman.
She has been bailed to appear in a NSW court on January 17 on charges involving a high-speed stolen car chase in 2005, shortly before her Bali arrest. It is unlikely she would be jailed on the outstanding charges.
Former Ballarat man Edward Norman Myatt was freed on December 15, after serving almost seven years of his eight-year sentence for attempting to smuggle hashish and methamphetamines into Bali inside his stomach.
He was due to be released four months earlier but rather than pay his 1.5 billion Rupiah fine he opted to serve an extra six months, something which Lawrence also did, serving an extra six months in lieu of her $100,000 fine.
Myatt, who had lived in Britain for several years before his Bali arrest in February 2012, was caught at Bali airport.
The court heard that he had swallowed more than 70 plastic casings which contained 1.1kg of hashish and four grams of methamphetamine.
Prosecutors had demanded a 15-year sentence but the court gave him an eight-year term. He spent his sentence in Kerobokan jail.
The other Australians who will be spending Christmas in prison include:
MATTHEW NORMAN
Norman was the youngest member of the Bali Nine, arrested at 18. He is serving a life sentence for his role in the heroin operation. Originally on the death penalty, he won an appeal to the Indonesian Supreme Court in 2008 and the sentence was reduced to life behind bars. He is now a model prisoner in the jail who enjoys the full support of jail Governor Tonny Nainggolan. Mr Nainggolan says Norman and fellow Bali Niner lifer Si Yi Chen are “remarkable human beings” and he has supported their bid to have their life sentences slashed to 20 years. Speaking on the eve of Lawrence’s release from jail, Norman said he still has hopes of being freed one day and he wished Lawrence the best of luck. Norman said he was doing all he could to become a better person. He now runs rehabilitation programs in the jail, including screen printing T-shirts, computer and English classes.
SI YI CHEN
Sydney man Si Yi Chen is also serving a life sentence in Kerobokan jail. Along with Norman, Chen and two other members of the Bali Nine were arrested at a Kuta hotel, with the remainder of the drugs and paraphernalia used to strap 8.2kg of heroin to the bodies of four mules. He too was on death row at one stage but won an appeal and had the sentence reduced to life in jail. He and Norman are now the only members of the Bali Nine to remain in Kerobokan prison where both are describe as model prisoners. Chen runs a silversmith course inside the jail, helping teach prisoners to make silver jewellery and give them skills for life on the outside. Chen has also been unsuccessful in repeated attempts to have his life sentence reduced to 20 years.
SCOTT RUSH
From Brisbane, Rush was one of four Bali Nine couriers arrested at Bali airport in April 2005 with drugs strapped to their bodies as they prepared to board a flight to Sydney. Rush at one point was on death row but had his sentenced reduced, on appeal, to life in jail. He is currently serving his sentence in the new narcotics jail in Bangli, in Bali’s north east. The jail was set up to house only narcotics prisoners. Rush was held in Kerobokan jail until early 2014 when, at his own request, he was moved to Karangasem jail in Bali’s east, to escape the temptation of drugs. He had planned to marry a London banker who he met while in jail but that relationship is now off. Like the other Bali Nine members on life sentences Rush has been unsuccessful in attempts to have the sentence reduced.
MARTIN STEPHENS
From Wollongong, Stephens was one of the Bali Nine couriers arrested at the airport with heroin strapped to his body. He is serving a life sentence and is currently held in Malang prison, in East Java. In 2011 Stephens married Javanese woman Christine Puspayanti in a traditional ceremony inside Kerobokan jail, where he was then held. The then Kerobokan jail Governor granted Stephens and his new bride a conjugal wedding night in a special cell at the jail. Like the other Bali Nine members Stephens has sought unsuccessfully to have his life sentence reduced. Under Indonesian regulations, determinant sentences must be approved by the Indonesian President, who has so far refused to commute any of the Bali Nine sentences.
MICHAEL CZUGAJ
Brisbane man Michael Czugaj, another of the Bali Nine couriers, is serving a life sentence in Madiun prison in East Java. He was moved from Kerobokan prison in 2016 to Madiun along with more than 60 other prisoners. At the time authorities said that Czugaj was a drug user and that traces of the drug ice were found in his cell. He too has been unable to secure a sentence reduction.
SARA CONNOR
From Byron Bay the businesswoman and mother of two is serving a five-year sentence for her role in the death of a Bali police officer, whose battered body was found on a Kuta beach on August 17, 2016. Connor and her then boyfriend, British man David Taylor, were both convicted of group violence causing death. Connor was originally sentenced to four years in jail but on appeal, it was increased to five years after the appeal court found that the sentence had failed to take into account aggravating factors that Connor had left the police officer to die on the beach and not sought help and that the crime damaged Bali’s tourism image. Connor is a senior leader in the women’s block at Kerobokan prison and each year is awarded sentence remissions. She is expected to have more time slashed from her sentence on Christmas Day. Connor and Taylor are no longer a couple.
ROBERT ANDREW FIDDES ELLIS
Formerly from Victoria, Ellis is serving a 15-year sentence in Kerobokan jail on child sex charges. He was convicted of sexually abusing 11 girls, aged under 18 years, between 2014 and 2015 in Bali, where he was then living. At trial Ellis maintained he had done nothing wrong and that he had paid the child victims generously. He denied he was a paedophile. He was 70 at the time of his conviction and sentence in 2016 and said the 15-year sentence was crushing and that he doubted he would live that long.
MICHAEL SACATIDES
The former Sydney kickboxing instructor was found guilty of importing 1.7kg of methamphetamine from Bangkok to Bali in October 2010. He was handed an 18-year sentence in a shock decision — two years more than that requested by the prosecution. Initially held in Kerobokan prison, Sacatides is now in the narcotics jail in Bangli with Scott Rush. Prison officials say that he regularly runs exercise classes with other prisoners and has married a local woman.
MICHAEL DAVID SODE
The former Sydney man is serving a six-month sentence in Bali after being convicted of an assault during a fight over dogs urinating on restaurant furniture and young coconuts at an Ubud restaurant. Sode, who was living in Bali at the time of the offence in July this year, is serving his sentence in Gianyar prison in Bali. During his trial Sode signed a peace agreement with the victim and apologised, saying he did not intend to assault the restaurant owner. He will be due for release in mid January 2019.
ALISTAIR LARMOUR
Formerly of Melbourne, the self-described spiritual healer and life coach was convicted of abducting his 15-month-old son from his estranged partner in a midnight home invasion at her Bali home in April this year. Larmour was sentenced to one year in jail — well short of the eight years recommended by prosecutors. After his sentence Larmour told News Corporation: “Everything that I have done I did out of love. Nobody got hurt, which is something I am glad about.” Larmour, who is held in Gianyar prison in Bali, will be due for release early 2019.
PLAMEN NIKOLOVPANDOV
The Bulgarian born Australian was arrested in July this year, together with a Bulgarian national and charged with ATM skimming. The pair was arrested at the Bobo Bungalow on Nusa Lembongan, an island off Bali. At the time police also seized equipment used for skimming data from ATM machines. Nikolovpandov was sentenced to one year in jail. He is held in Klungkung jail in East Bali.
BRENDON LUKE JOHNSSON
The 43-year-old Sunshine Coast man is spending his first Christmas behind bars in Bali’s Kerobokan prison. Arrested in August, he went on trial last week on drug dealing and drug possession charges, the most serious of which carries the death penalty as its maximum penalty. Johnsson and his girlfriend are accused of having 11.6 grams of cocaine in 13 plastic packets at their Kuta home. Johnsson appears in court again on January 9.
SHAUN EDWARD DAVIDSON
The Perth man will be spending his second Christmas on the run after sensationally tunnelling out of Bali’s Kerobokan prison in June 2017. Davidson, who was serving a one-year sentence for immigration offences, was just 10 weeks short of being released when he escaped with three others. He later told News Corporation that he had gone on the run to avoid being deported home to Perth to face outstanding drugs charges for which he believed he would not get a fair trial. Since his escape Davidson has taunted authorities on Facebook, checking in all over the world. His latest supposed check-in, for which he provides no proof or photographs of himself in any of the locations, was Perth airport last week. “Hey hey I’m back for Xmas ppl,” he wrote.
MARIA ELVIRA PINTO EXPOSTO
The Sydney grandmother, who was handed a death penalty in Malaysia in May this year after her earlier acquittal, on drug smuggling charges, remains locked up in Kuala Lumpur pending a further defence appeal. She is likely to benefit from a recent decision, by the Malaysian Government, to abolish the death penalty and to put all death penalties on hold. Exposto was arrested in December 2014 at Kuala Lumpur airport with 1.5kg of methamphetamine in her backpack. In December last year she was acquitted of the charges after the court found she had been duped into unknowingly carrying the drugs in a love scam by a man she met online. The prosecution appealed and she was sentenced to death. A date has not been set for another appeal.
YOSHE ANN TAYLOR
From Queensland, Taylor is locked up in Cambodia after being convicted in 2014 of drug smuggling and sentenced to 23 years jail. The former kindergarten teacher and mother of two was arrested at Phnom Penh International airport with two kilograms of heroin in her luggage. She had gone to Phnom Penh after an online romance with a man calling himself “Precious Max” who had offered her a job in arts and crafts. Taylor lost one appeal in 2016 and earlier this year the Supreme Court quashed her conviction after her legal team presented new evidence that other Australians had been scammed by Precious Max. A hearing, before the Court of Appeal, is now pending.
CASSIE SAINSBURY
The Adelaide woman is serving a six year jail term in Colombia after being convicted of smuggling six kilograms of cocaine, hidden inside 18 pairs of headphones. She was arrested at Bogota airport and had faced a hefty sentence. A year ago, after reaching a plea deal, she was sentenced to six years. The former personal trainer told the court she had agreed to transport documents from Bogota to London but was tricked and drugs were packed into her suitcase.
PETER GERARD SCULLY
The former Melbourne businessman is serving a life sentence in the Philippines after being convicted in June this year of running an online cyber pornography business where he filmed degraded acts on small children and sold them online. One, called Daisy’s Destruction, showed the sexual assault of an 18-month-old girl and his crimes included the abuse of two young girls who he forced to dig their own graves. Scully faces further charges.
LISA CUNNINGHAM
The 43-year-old former Adelaide woman is facing the death penalty in the US after being charged with the murder of her seven-year-old stepdaughter, Sanaa. The little girl suffered acute schizophrenia and prosecutors allege she died from a sepsis infection after injuries to her head and foot in February 2017. Prosecutors allege that Cunningham and her husband Germayne Cunningham neglected and abused Sanaa. She is due to appear in an Arizona court again on February 28.
JOHN AND YVETTE NIKOLIC
The former Melbourne horse trainer and his wife will be spending their first Christmas behind bars in Fiji. The couple was arrested in Fiji on June 22 and police allege that John Nikolic imported 12.9kg of cocaine on their catamaran which they had sailed from Colombia and through the Pacific. It is further alleged the Nikolics had in their possession 34.4 grams of methamphetamine and cocaine tablets worth an estimated $20-30 million. Yvette Nikolic faces only drug possession charges after the importation charges against her were dropped. Both also face weapons charges. The pair will stand trial in late January.
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