Schapelle’s nightmare is over, but the Bali Nine’s continues
AS Schapelle Corby’s drug smuggling hell comes to a close, what does the future hold for the last seven of the infamous group?
AS Schapelle Corby’s Bali nightmare for drug smuggling comes to a close, what does the future hold for the remaining seven of the infamous Bali Nine?
The Bali Nine is now seven. It’s just two years since ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran faced a firing squad for their role in the attempted smuggling of 8.3kg of heroin worth $4 million out of Indonesia in April 2005.
They paid for the plan with their lives.
The other Bali Nine members: Si Yi Chen, Michael Czugaj, Renae Lawrence, Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, Matthew Norman, Scott Rush, and Martin Stephens were sent to prison.
Six are serving life sentences, with Lawrence currently the only one who will possibly taste freedom. But not for another nine years.
Under Indonesian law, prisoners serving life terms can apply for a determinant sentence of 20 years.
Norman and Chen have for years tried to have their life sentences reduced, but so far not been awarded the reduced sentence.
Norman and Chen are the only two members of the Bali Nine now held in Kerobokan jail. Lawrence is in a different jail in Bali, as is Scott Rush.
Stephens, Tan Dutch Tanh Nguyen and Michael Czugaj are in jails in Java, having been moved by authorities.
THE EXECUTED RINGLEADERS
The Sydney men were the masterminds behind the Bali Nine.
Andrew Chan, 31 and Myuran Sukumaran 34, were executed by firing squad on the Indonesian prison island of Nusa Kambangan on April 29, 2015.
The pair, by then praised for their efforts to rehabilitate themselves and help other prisoners, had also embraced Christianity.
As they faced the death penalty, they became leaders at Kerobokan Prison — running classes in religion, art and cooking., and acting as leaders, mentors and counsellors.
Pleas for clemency from the prison governor, who described them as model prisoners who shouldn’t be executed because of their positive influence on other inmates, fell on deaf ears.
They refused blindfolds, and faced their fate and final moments singing “10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)”.
Their voices fell silent under the gunfire.
In the days before his death — on April 27, 2015 — Chan married Febyanti Herewila, who he had met while she was visiting another inmate.
Sukumaran — arrested on the day of his 24th birthday — embraced art while incarcerated, and taught computing, English and philosophy to his fellow prisoners.
His also started a business selling inmates’ artwork. His last painting was a bleeding Indonesian flag
In March this year, Chan’s family slammed the Australian Government for rejecting a recommendation that would have banned Australian Federal Police from sharing drug crime information with foreign countries unless they could first be assured the death penalty would not be applied.
The AFP tipped off Indonesian authorities about Chan and Myuran Sukumaran’s Bali nine heroin plot. They defended their decision saying the AFP didn’t have enough evidence to arrest the Australians before they left for Indonesia.
RENAE LAWRENCE
Lawrence is serving a 20-year sentence, and is currently due for release in 2026. Last year, her sentence was cut by six months.
The former hospitality worker and panel beater from Newcastle is now 39. Originally sentenced to life, she had her sentence reduced on appeal. She was at Kerobokan Prison, where Corby was held, until 2013, but was transferred to a prison in Negara after being accused of a plot to kill guards.
She is currently in a prison in Bangli, where she asked to be transferred because it’s closer to Denpasar for family and visitors.
She has reportedly converted to Hinduism, teaches dance classes in jail, and has a rescue puppy.
Lawrence reportedly developed a close, but sometimes explosive relationship with Corby.
In an interview with Woman’s Day magazine, Lawrence said she was appointed to care for Corby, who had become increasingly mentally unstable.
In 2014 Laurence claimed in a TV interview that Corby admitted her guilt in prison, and had faked mental illness to get her sentence reduced.
SCOTT RUSH
It was Rush’s desperate parents who tipped off the AFP, hoping they would stop their son becoming a drug mule.
They thought police would stop him travelling to Bali.
“When I received a call from the Australian Government authorities that Scott had been detained in Indonesia for attempting to export heroin, I was speechless, sickened to the gut,” his father Lee, told Australian Story in 2006.
“We tried to lawfully stop our son leaving the country. It wasn’t done,” Rush’s mother, Christine said.
Rush is now 31, and was first sentenced to life in prison, then, like other Bali Nine members who appealed their sentences, the death sentence. Another appeal reinstated the life in jail sentence.
In 2014 Rush was transferred, at his request, to a prison in Karangasem, East Bali and was formerly engaged to London banker Nikki Butler.
MICHAEL CZUGAJ
One of the youngest members of the group, Czugaj is in jail in Madiun, East Java, where he was transferred from Kerobokan more than a year ago.
He’s now 31 and is serving life. The former surfing-made apprentice tradie from Brisbane misses Chan and Sukumaran dreadfully, saying they helped him through the dark periods in jail.
Last month, on the eve of the second anniversary of their executions, he told Fairfax “time kind of gels into one”.
“You don’t deal with it, you get on with it. You do become desensitised in this environment. I have seen a lot of death and a lot of pain. No mercy … shackles, tied to a cross and shot dead. That could have been me … it could have been any of us,” he said.
Serving time in Madiun is far tougher than in the comparable “holiday camp” that is Kerobokan, he said, revealing he’s lonely and visitors are rare.
“It sucks, it really sucks, OK? Everything costs money, nothing is free. You can’t even have a visitor bring in smokes, everything has to be brought inside … the prison economy.”
He dreams of freedom, surfing again, living by the ocean, having a family. The reality is a life sentence, and the hope he can be transferred back to a Bali jail.
SI YI CHEN
Initially sentenced to life, Si Yi Chen was left reeling when on appeal, instead of reducing the sentence, the Indonesian Supreme Court gave him death.
A further appeal, and a full confession, saw the original life sentence reinstated.
He’s now 32, and remains imprisoned at Kerobokan, where he runs a silversmith workshop.
He works in partnership with a local jewellery company Yin Jewellery. Mule Jewels is a rehabilitative silver making program teaching inmates a skill they can use once freed.
He shares a cell with two others — “it’s comfortable enough for the three of us but it is dirty” — and hopes one day his sentence will be commuted to 20 years.
“I am still a human being so I still need hope,” Chen, who has converted to Christianity, told News Corp last year.
Norman and Chen are the only two members of the Bali Nine now held in Kerobokan jail.
MATTHEW NORMAN
The former Quakers Hill catering company worker is now 30. Initially given life, upped to the death sentence on appeal, and then reinstated to life in jail after a full confession. He is the youngest of the Bali Nine.
Last year, who works on graphic design, designing works for T-shirts, bags and posters in Kerobokan, Norman spoke of his dreams of being free and redeeming himself.
“I don’t believe I would die in this place. If it (reduction) doesn’t happen this year we try again next year,” Norman told News Corp.
“We are not getting any younger. It would be good to go home soon and start our lives again with all the skills we have learned in here. It would be good to go home and start fresh.”
TAN DUC THANH NGUYEN
The now 33-year-old Vietnamese-Australian was initially given life. His appeal for a softer conviction went pear-shaped when the Indonesian Supreme Court instead imposed the death penalty.
The life sentence was reinstated after a full confession and another appeal. He was originally at Kerobokan, but was transferred in 2014 to a jail in Malang In East Java. Along with Stephens. They were accused of “violating jail rules”.
The man dubbed “the forgotten Bali nine prisoner” found love in prison: in 2015 he was engaged to Lyudmyla Karpova, a 26-year-old ambulance volunteer with the Red Cross in Italy.
MARTIN STEPHENS
Sentenced to life, the former Wollongong bartender was on his first trip to Bali when caught as a drug mule. He’s now 41. An appeal to have his sentence reduced to ten years was rejected in 2011. He married an Indonesian woman, Christine Winarni Puspayanti in 2011.
He met his wife months after his arrest when she was on a visit to Kerobokan Prison as part of a church group. They married in a traditional Indonesian ceremony. He was transferred to Malang in East Java along with Nguyen in 2014.
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