I hope one day we’ll walk out of here: Fellow Bali Nine smuggler’s wish for him, and for Renae Lawrence
Renae Lawrence will perhaps be the only Bali Nine member to be freed. Fellow drug mule Matthew Norman serves life, and hopes.
On the eve of Renae Lawrence’s release from prison, fellow Bali Nine drug smuggler Matthew Norman has said he wishes her luck, is not bitter and still hopes to one day walk free from prison.
Lawrence, 41, will be the first — and possibly only — member of the Bali Nine ever to be released from prison when she is deported on Wednesday after serving 13 years and seven months for her role in the 2005 plot to smuggle 8.3kg of heroin through Bali airport and into Australia.
Ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukamaran were executed in 2015 and another member, Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, died of cancer earlier this year.
The five remaining fellow traffickers — Norman, Martin Stephens, Si Yi Chen, Michael Czugaj and Scott Rush — are all serving life sentences in Indonesia.
Lawrence will be released tomorrow morning from Bangli prison, 90 minutes northeast of Denpasar, into the custody of Bali immigration officials and transported with police escort to Bali airport where her mother and brother will accompany her back to Australia.
Lawrence’s family has said she is a “nervous wreck” ahead of her deportation to Australia where she faces an outstanding arrest warrant related to a high-speed car chase in New South Wales in 2005, just one month before she was arrested at Bali airport with 2.7kg of heroin strapped to her body.
She too has expressed concern that, as a notorious former drug smuggler, she will not be accepted back into Australian society.
‘I still have hope’
At an impromptu press conference held inside Bali’s Kerobokan prison at an open day today, Norman, 32, said he had not seen Lawrence since she was transferred from there in 2013.
“What’s going on with Renae, that’s her story. She was sentenced by the courts to 20 years. She has run her course, she’s done what she needs to do to get out. She’s gone and got a 20 year sentence and I wish her the best of luck but for me I am still here with a life sentence and I am still doing all that I can to better myself,” said Norman.
“I still have hope that my sentence will come down.”
Asked if it felt bittersweet that Lawrence was being released while five remaining Bali Nine members were serving life sentences he said; “I won’t say too much. Our sentences are what they are … there is not really much we can say.”
“I can’t worry about what others are doing. We can only focus on ourselves and what’s happening in Kerobokan, not Bangli.
“She got her sentence, we got ours. We can’t be negative, it’s not healthy.”
‘She has changed’
At Bangli prison where Lawrence today spent her final day in incarceration, governor Made Suwendra said she deserved a second chance and he hoped Australia would accept her.
“From our observations she has changed, she is fully rehabilitated and she has expressed remorse for the crime that she has committed,” Mr Suwendra said.
“I hope that the Australian government and Australian people will be able to accept her and treat her like an ordinary citizen, because after her release … her rights as a citizen should be protected and fulfilled.
“My message to Renae is take care of yourself, stay on your path of righteousness, stay away from a life of crime. This is your chance to be a good person. I hope you can continue to be productive and play your role in society, be useful to your family, your community and country.”
In the meantime, Norman said both he and fellow Bali Nine member Si Yi Chen, 33, were keeping busy in Kerobokan and that he was trying to “become the best person I can”.
Looking fit and relaxed in a black “be original” cap and black T-shirt, he said the Indonesian judicial system offered many opportunities for prisoners to have their sentences reduced and he had been regularly applying for those.
‘One day we will walk out of here’
“I haven’t got there yet but I still have hope that we can get our sentences reduced and that one day we will walk out of here.”
“I see my family all the time … I just believe that one day I will be able to go home and visit them once again.”
Lawrence is the only member of the Bali Nine to have been granted a 20-year sentence, allowing her to take advantage of Indonesia’s generous remission system.
Several members of the Bali Nine have oscillated between life and death sentences over the years. Scott Rush spent five years on death row, before his sentence was reduced to life on appeal.
Former Brisbane glazier Michael Czugaj, originally sentenced to life, had his sentence temporarily commuted to 20 years before his life sentence was reinstated five months later on appeal.
Both Chen and Norman received life sentences that they appealed, only to have the courts impose the death penalty. Their original life sentences were restored only after giving full confessions of their roles in the Bali Nine drug plot.
Prison governor backs Norman, Chen
Kerobokan prison governor Tonny Nainggolan said he would recommend sentence reductions for Norman and Chen, as he had done twice before.
“At the moment it’s impossible that Matthew Norman and Si Yi Chen will walk free because they’re serving life sentences. The only chance for them to walk free is for the president to grant them a sentence reduction so the life sentence is commuted to a 20 year sentence.”
Successive Kerobokan governors had asked nine times for their sentences to be commuted and Governor Nainggolan had personally asked twice before.
“They deserve it. They have changed as people, they have expressed remorse, they have behaved well and they have actively participated in many of our programs. They have helped their fellow prisoners. That’s why we issued that recommendation but so far the President has not replied,” he said.
— Additional reporting Nivell Rayda
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