Foreigners serving time in Bali's prisons have had their sentences reduced to mark the 81st anniversary of Indonesia's independence.
66 were granted a general remission of the first type, meaning a partial cut to the sentence, while four received the second type, under which the sentence ends immediately. The ceremony took place on 17 August at Kerobokan prison, which holds more foreigners than any other facility on the island.
Across the island, 3060 inmates and juveniles were granted reductions, and the decision has already been carried out for 3026 of them: 2922 people received a first-type remission, 101 received the second type and walked free, and another three were juveniles. The reductions ranged from one to six months. The nationalities of the foreigners released and the charges they were serving time for were not disclosed.
For a foreigner, a reduced sentence does not mean staying in Bali. Once the sentence has been served, the person is handed over to immigration, placed in a detention centre in Denpasar and expelled from the country: deportation in such cases is provided for by Article 75 of the immigration law. At the same time they are barred from returning — under Article 102 the ban lasts up to ten years, and for those deemed a serious security threat it is for life.
Remission is not granted automatically. A person must have served more than six months, taken part in prison programmes and have no disciplinary penalties over the past six months. It is not available to those sentenced to death or to life imprisonment, nor to those serving time in lieu of an unpaid fine.
At Kerobokan, an Australian citizen serving nine years in a drug case lost his reduction. On the eleventh of August a phone was passed to him during a visit, guards found it, the violation was entered in the disciplinary register, and his name was left off the remission lists.
Kerobokan holds 100 foreigners from 29 countries, and 34 people from 19 countries received sentence reductions, in cases ranging from drugs to murder. The prison is overcrowded: 1866 people against a capacity of 1480. In total, the island's eleven facilities hold 4938 people, 3698 of them convicted.
You can add one right now!