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| Bali Nine member 'furious and devastated' as appeal rejected |
Martin Stephens
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Deborah Cassrels = From: The Australian - January 17, 2011 12:00AM
THE lawyer for Martin Stephens fears the convicted Bali Nine drug-smuggler serving life in Kerobokan jail will harm himself.
This comes after the rejection of a judicial appeal to reduce his sentence to 10 years.
Wirawan Adnan said yesterday that Stephens, 34, was "furious and devastated". "His expression to me on Friday was: 'I cannot live like this for the next 20 years'. Who could? A life sentence could mean 20 years if he is compliant with prison guards . . . and he is being a good boy. I don't think anybody could accept that kind of reality . . . to spend the rest of their life in jail."
Stephens, convicted for his part in the 2005 plot to smuggle more than 8kg of heroin from Bali to Australia, had sought a judicial review from the Indonesian Supreme Court. Indonesia's top court said on Thursday the original ruling had been upheld. A spokesman said there had been no error in the previous judgment.
Mr Adnan visited Stephens for about an hour, urging him to seek a pardon from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who is not known to be merciful to drug traffickers. If he chose not to pursue this avenue, which has no time limit, it was the end of the road for him, Mr Adnan said. "I don't believe he deserves life for what he did . . . the remaining option is for a presidential pardon. But I have to warn him of the consequences: if he uses this option he has to confess to all the things he said he didn't do . . . that he was not there just for the ride."
That entailed admitting he was well connected to all the Bali Nine drug members in Australia before the failed plot and that he had been involved in the masterminding of drug trafficking. Stephens has argued he was under the command off fellow smuggler Renae Lawrence. "He said he was frightened and it was a life-threatening situation," Mr Adnan said.
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| Bali Nine convict appeal quashed |
The Jakarta Post | Fri, 01/14/2011 10:48 AM | National
JAKARTA: The Supreme Court rejected a case review filed by Martin Eric Stephens, one of nine drug smuggling convicts known as the Bali Nine, and upheld the life sentence handed down by the Denpasar District Court.
Stephens’ lawyer, Wirawan Adnan, said he regretted the verdict. “It would be difficult for him to face this as a case review is the last resort to appeal a verdict in the Indonesian legal system,” he said.
Martin, along with eight other Australian nationals — Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, Matthew Norman, Michael Czugaj, Si Yi Chen and Tan Duc Than Nguyen, Scott Anthony Rush, Renae Lawrence, and Martin Stephens — were arrested in Denpasar in 2005.
They were convicted of attempting to smuggle 8.3 kilograms of heroin to Australia.
Chan, Myuran, and Rush, who were sentenced to death, are also awaiting a ruling on their appeals lodged with the Supreme Court.
Four other members of the syndicate, Norman, Czugaj, Chen and Nguyen, are serving life sentences while Lawrence is serving a 20-year sentence. — JP
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