Australian prisoners serving time in tough Bali prisons have sentences cut short
Australian drug criminals and other offenders serving tough sentences in Bali have had their prison sentences reduced thanks to Indonesian Independence Day celebrations.
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Two Aussie drug prisoners have had their prison sentences in Bali reduced during Indonesian Independence Day celebrations.
Former Brisbane man Brendon Luke Johnsson received a three month reduction on his five year and four month sentence for using and trafficking cocaine. He was arrested with 12 grams of cocaine in August 2018.
Johnsson and his Indonesian girlfriend Remi Purwanto, who is also serving a prison sentence in Bali’s toughest prison in Kerobokan for her involvement in the crimes, was fined more than $80,000.
Johnsson’s stepfather Ashley Robinson, who was awarded the Order of Australia for his charitable work, said earlier this year that prison has been the best thing for Johnsson.
“He hasn’t touched drugs since August 4, so this is the first time he’s been clean since he was 16. “He’s in prison, but he is a different person. He’s thinking clearly…he’s going to the meetings, he’s doing everything right and we’re really proud of him as a family.”
The former Sydney kickboxing instructor, 52, had arrived on a flight from Bangkok, where he was then living and had faced the death sentence In Indonesia which has harsh penalties for narcotics trafficking.
In Bali’s small rural prison in Karangasem, drug mule Michael Sacatides received a five month remission to his 18-year sentence for importing 1.7kg of methamphetamine secreted in his suitcase lining in 2010.
Another recipient of the Independence Day largesse is the reviled paedophile Robert Ellis, 74, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for sexually abusing 11 girls on the holiday island between 2014 and 2015.
The American ‘suitcase killer’ Heather Mack – whose daughter Stella is being raised by an Australian woman who lives in Bali — was given a five month remission on her ten year sentence for the murder of her socialite mother in the glamorous hotel St Regis in 2016 and crushing her body into a suitcase.
The remaining five members of the Bali Nine were overlooked for remission this year.
The Bali Nine’s Matthew Norman, Scott Rush and Si Yi Chen all regularly campaign for clemency from Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo, but have been unsuccessful.
Michael Czugaj and Martin Stephens – who were also part of the failed plot to smuggle 8.3 kilos of heroin out of Indonesia and into Australia – are rarely ever heard from.
Each man is serving a life sentence while the ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were sentenced to death and executed in 2015.
Just last month Byron Bay mum Sara Connor walked free from Kerobokan jail having served four of her five year sentence for the brutal beach bashing killing of a cop in 2016.
If it were not for the Christmas Day and Indonesian Independence Day remission, Connor would still be behind bars.
Originally published as Australian prisoners serving time in tough Bali prisons have sentences cut short
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