Bali Nine Case - Test For Aussie Policy

MELBOURNE, Apr 15 (IPS) - The recent downgrading of the sentences for three Australian drug smugglers from death to life terms has been largely welcomed here. But with three other members of the 'Bali Nine' group still on death row, the role played by Australia’s federal police in their arrests remains contentious.

The Indonesian Supreme Court’s decision in early March to commute the death sentences of Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, Matthew Norman and Si Yi Chen to life imprisonment was described by Stephen Smith, Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, as "very welcome news", a sentiment also expressed by human and civil rights organisations around the country.

The three’s initial life sentences were reduced to 20 years on appeal but then upgraded to death following prosecutors’ counter-appeals. The three men were arrested -- along with the condemned ringleader Myuruan Sukumaran -- with 350 grams of heroin in a suitcase at a Bali hotel in 2005.

They can hope that with good behaviour their life sentences will be further reduced and they will be allowed to serve out part of their prison terms in Australia. But Sukumaran, his co-ringleader Andrew Chan, and Scott Rush, one of the drug couriers -- Rush was arrested at the island’s international airport with heroin strapped to his body -- still face the death penalty.

The death sentence for Rush is seen here as particularly harsh, given that three other couriers -- known as drug mules -- arrested with him on Apr. 17, 2005, were sentenced to 20 years and to life in prison. Originally awarded a life sentence, Rush’s appeal only resulted in his sentence being increased to death.

"It’s anyone’s guess (as to) why Scott’s penalty was upgraded to death when anyone looking at the case could see that it’s pretty obvious that he was just a mule," says Martin Hodgson from the prisoner advocacy group, Foreign Prisoner Support Service (FPSS).

But this latest development has provided the impetus for further scrutiny of the role played by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) in the arrests of the Bali Nine by the Indonesian authorities.

"I think it’s unfortunate whenever the AFP assists in arrests of Australians overseas knowing that the penalty is the death penalty," Hodgson told IPS.

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Source: IPSnews