Image: Justice is meted out in Denpasar District Court. Credit: reginacarey.com
An Australian man, Brendon Luke Johnson, 43, and his Indonesian girlfriend, Remi Purwanti, 43, were sentenced to five years and four months in jail by judges at the Denpasar District Court after they were proven to be selling cocaine in Bali.
“The judges stated that the defendants, Remi Purwanti and Brendon Luke Johnson, were officially proven guilty of illegally owning, saving and providing more than five grams of class I non-plant narcotics,” said the head of the board of judges, Kimiarsa, at the Denpasar District Court on Wednesday.
The judges said that the defendants violated Article 112 paragraph 2 of Narcotic Law and Article 55 paragraph 1 of Criminal Code and demanded the defendants pay fines worth Rp 800 million or stay in jail for two more months. The judges also stated that they sentenced the defendants because their crime could harm their own and other people’s health.
Besides, their crime contradicted with the government’s program to eradicate narcotic distribution in the country. “But the defendants were polite and admitted the crime, that’s why we decided to sentence them a shorter time than the prosecutor demanded,” said Kimiarsa.
The case began when the Denpasar Police Drug Unit arrested another person, Bena Silvia Magusta on August 4, 2018 on Jalan Intan Permai, Kerobokan. Bena was sentenced separately to four years in jail for her crime. When police investigated the case, they found that four cocaine packages were received from Johnson and Purwanti. Police pursued and arrested them in a room on Jalan Mataram, Kuta. They also secured 13 plastic packages containing 11.6 grams of cocaine in the room. Remi admitted to the police that he purchased the cocaine for Rp 40 million from a man named Made on August 2, 2018. Then they proceeded to sell the packages.
