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| Kerobokan Prison, aka "Hotel K" |
Australian drug trafficker Schapelle Corby could be freed from a Bali prison within months after the corrections board on the Indonesian resort island said Saturday it had recommended her for parole.
The board said the 36-year-old should be released from Kerobokan jail to serve out the rest of her 20-year sentence on the island living with her sister.
The recommendation had been made to the justice ministry on Friday, in part based on Corby’s “good behavior”, Bali corrections board chief Ketut Artha told reporters.
“All that is left for her parole to be granted is a decision from the justice minister,” Artha said.
While he said the decision could be made in “a month or so”, justice ministry director general of corrections Nugroho, who goes by one name, said it would likely take longer.
“With foreigners, cases usually take two to three months, possibly longer,” Nugroho said.
Corby was convicted in 2005 for smuggling 4.1 kilos (nine pounds) of marijuana into Bali the previous year.
Having received several remissions and a five-year sentence cut from the president, Corby is currently due for release in March 2017.
If she continues to receive the usual sentence reductions during her parole period, she could be free to return home to Australia by mid-2015.
Source: Jakarta Globe, August 17, 2013
Future for Bali 4 remains uncertain as good news arrives for Corby
4 of the Bali 9 drug smugglers have been devastated by the news that their applications for a reduction in sentence from life imprisonment to 20 years may have been rejected.
Martin Stephens and Matthew Norman both told Fairfax Media inside Kerobokan prison on Saturday that they had been told their application had been either rejected or delayed for months.
But in another indication that Schapelle Corby's parole application is close, Fairfax Media has learned that her sister, Mercedes, has been making inquiries about the payment of the $11,000 penalty attached to the sentence.
Prison sentences in Indonesia often carry a financial penalty as well, and failing to pay it would translate into an extra 6 months in prison for Corby.
Corby has cleared a number of other administrative barriers recently, and an agency of the Indonesian correction system has confirmed that, after inspection, Mercedes' Bali home is suitable for Ms Corby to live in while serving out her sentence on parole.
Kerobokan was opened to the media to watch prisoners perform in Indonesian National Day celebrations in Bali on Friday. After the celebration, prison authorities confirmed that Ms Corby had been recommended for a 6-month reprieve from her sentence for good behaviour.
A large backlog of recommendations in the Director General of Corrections in Jakarta means the cut has not yet been confirmed, but it's expected to be within months.
Corby did not attend the function.
A male prisoner said Corby was now so paranoid about the media that she refused to leave her cell, even to take out the rubbish, in case a journalist was watching or a fellow prisoner snapped a photo and tried to sell it.
She only left her cell for consular visits and visits from her sister Mercedes, the prisoner said.
Bali 9 prisoner Renae Lawrence has been recommended for a 6-month reduction for good behaviour and a further 2 months for being a prison leader, but is subject to the same delay as Corby in having it confirmed.
But Bali 9 members Stephens, Norman, Si Yi Chen and Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen face spending the rest of their lives in the jail if they cannot have their sentences reduced.
The Australian consulate in Bali has informed them that their applications have not been approved.
It's unclear if they are the victim of the same backlog of cases in Jakarta, or if it's an outright rejection.
Norman said he had retained lawyers to try to find out. Stephens expressed his extreme frustration - the application has been rejected twice already.
"We've been here nine years already, you know, something has got to happen," he said.
"Renae [Lawrence] gets her remission, Corby gets her remission, and just none of us on life and death gets remission or reduction.
"There is a chance it will still happen. I have faith in the Indonesian government and the Australian government, and I'm sure they're doing the best they can. It gets difficult sometimes but you've just got to roll with the punches, I suppose."
According to Matthew Norman: "I've tried my hardest to do everything the jail asks. I've set up programs, organised sponsorship ... I don't get a cent out of it or any privileges, and I'd be devastated if it was all for nothing again."
Source: The Border Mail, August 17, 2013