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| Wijayapura Port, the gateway to Nusakambangan prison island |
Cilacap, Central Java. Indonesian police have arrested a corrections officer for drug trafficking on the prison island of Nusakambangan, the same place where less than a month earlier the government executed eight men for the same offense.
“The suspect has been identified as Bayu Anggit Permana,” Adj. Sr. Comr. Ulung Sampurna Jaya, the Cilacap Police chief, said on Thursday as quoted by Antara.
“Officers arrested him at Wijayapura Port” — the gateway to Nusakambangan — “following a month-long investigation that we launched after receiving a tip,” Ulung said.
Upon arresting Bayu, investigators found him carrying 27 packets of crystal methamphetamine weighing 13.5 grams each.
Bayu later told investigators that he had received the drugs from an inmate named Abdul Rosyid at Batu Penitentiary, one of several prisons on Nuskambangan.
“Based on his confession, out officers then searched [the inmate’s] cell,” Ulung said, adding that the prisoner later admitted to paying Bayu Rp 2.5 million ($191) to smuggle the drugs out of the prison.
Police plan to charge Bayu and Abdul with drug dealing, which carries a sentence of 12 to 20 years.
Drug seizures are common at prisons on Nusakambangan, where officials have a history for being complicit in allowing prisoners to set up meth labs.
The island was also the location for the executions on April 29 of eight convicted drug offenders, seven of them foreign nationals, including Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.
