How an Australian tourist ended up with a 12-year prison term in Bali
An Australian man has been sentenced to 12 years in prison in Indonesia after being convicted of smuggling cocaine to the tourist island of Bali.
Lamar Aaron Ahchee, 43, from Cairns in north Queensland, was arrested in May after police raided his rented home near Kuta Beach, a popular tourist area. Officers found 1.7 kilograms of cocaine packed into more than 200 small plastic bags, along with a digital scale and a mobile phone.
Indonesian police said the arrest followed an investigation into two suspicious packages sent to Ahchee from England. Authorities believe he intended to distribute the drugs locally, although Ahchee denied knowing the packages contained cocaine.
Delivering the verdict on Thursday, Judge Tjokorda Putra Budi Pastima said the large quantity of drugs posed a serious risk to public safety and could harm Bali’s tourism industry. The court also cited Ahchee’s lack of cooperation during the investigation as an aggravating factor.
The sentence was harsher than prosecutors had requested. In addition to the prison term, Ahchee was fined two billion rupiah (about US$120,000).
Indonesia has some of the world’s strictest drug laws and remains a major target for international trafficking networks, according to the United Nations. More than 500 people, including dozens of foreigners, are currently on death row in the country, most for drug-related offences.
This story is written and edited by the Global South World team, you can contact us here.
