CANBERRA,
Australia (AP) — Australia denied
Wednesday that it had agreed to treat young Indonesian people smugglers more
leniently in return for Indonesia reducing the prison sentence of a
high-profile Australian drug trafficker.
But
Foreign Minister Bob Carr conceded that Indonesians saw a link between the
treatment of Australian Schapelle Corby and young Indonesians held in
Australian prisons.
Corby,
34, learned in a Bali prison on Tuesday that Indonesian President Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono had granted a five-year reduction of a 20-year sentence for
her 2005 conviction for smuggling marijuana onto the resort island. Her lawyer
said that since several other cuts to her sentence were approved previously,
she could be freed in about three months.
The
announcement comes a week after Australia released three young Indonesians from
prison based on new evidence that they might not be adults. Crew members of
Indonesian people-smuggling boats who illegally bring asylum seekers to
Australia are sent home without punishment if they are children.
The
Australian government is reviewing the convictions of another 21 Indonesian
prisoners after complaints from Jakarta and Australia’s human rights
commissioner that they might have been children when they were arrested for
people smuggling. Police use wrist X-rays as proof that a suspect is at least
19 years old, but critics argue that such tests are inaccurate.
Indonesia
State Secretary Sudi Silalahi said Corby’s sentence reduction was part of a
deal in which Australia would be more lenient toward young Indonesians arrested
for crewing asylum-seeker boats.
“That’s
how the Indonesians see it,” Carr conceded. But he denied that Australia’s
decision was part of any reciprocal agreement, though both Corby and the
incarceration of young Indonesians in Australia were on the agenda of a
bilateral summit in March.
“We’d
be making that decision about those minors if there were no Schapelle Corby and
indeed no Australians serving time in Indonesian jails,” Carr said. “We’d be
doing it because it’s unconscionable to hold minors in adult prisons.”
Corby’s
case has attracted intense and sustained attention in Australia, where many
believe she is innocent. She maintains she does not know how 9 pounds (4.2
kilograms) of marijuana came to be found in her surfboard bag when it was
searched on arrival at Denpasar Airport in late 2004.
Her
lawyer, Iskandar Nawing, said Indonesian authorities agreed to reduce her
sentence because of her poor mental state.
Corby’s
mother, Rosleigh Rose, told reporters outside her home in the Australian east
coast city of Logan on Wednesday that she would fly to Bali in July and “will
be bringing her home.”
“I
think it hasn’t sunk in yet. I can’t believe it,” Rose said in a statement.
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