Bali drug trial: Melbourne nightclub promoters jailed
Two Melbourne men have been jailed in Bali over cocaine possession after an emotional and dramatic trial.
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Two Melbourne nightclub promoters have been sentenced in Bali’s Denpasar District court on charges of cocaine possession.
William Cabantog, 35, got one year behind bars and David Van Iersel, 38, got nine months after being accused of having 1.12 grams of cocaine at Bali’s trendy Lost City nightclub in Canggu during an August raid. After their arrest, each man’s urine tested positive to the narcotic.
Cabantog and Van Iersel were looking down the barrel of a maximum sentence of 12 years in Bali’s infamous Kerobokan jail, where they have already spent several months. However, in December the men were thrown a lifeline by the prosecutor, Made Ayu Citra Maya Sari, when she requested the judge sentence the men to 18 months and 14 months, respectively.
It was an emotional moment that prompted Cabantog to double over and weep.
Ms Maya Sari told the court the men – who have been deemed by the Indonesian drug assessor as heavily drug dependent – were victims of the drugs trade. A trade that this Asian nation treats with the harshest penalties including the death sentence.
David Van Iersel looked calm as he arrived at court today hand-cuffed to an elderly Dutch national who the Australian physically supported as he collapsed several times as they were being herded toward the courthouse cells.
In August, the two men were arrested in Van Iersel’s office at the fashionable nightclub where Cabantog admits that he prepared and snorted the cocaine with Van Iersel. The court heard Cabantog immediately handed over the drugs to police, who allegedly found electric scales in his rented motor bike.
Cabantog told the court that he paid IDR three million ($300) to a man known only as Joel for the narcotics. It is understood the police were tipped off about the drug by a member of the public.