Indonesia and Australia are preparing to ink a deal to send the remaining five of the ‘Bali Nine’ back to Australia. But do they all want to go? Duncan Graham reports from Malang prison in Java.
One of the Bali Five, Martin Stephen, faces a dilemma worthy of a Shakespearean plot.
After almost two decades in overstuffed prisons with men whose values and language he spurns, the 48-year-old prisoner is in Lowokwaroe jail (Malang, East Java) and suddenly getting a mash of messages. So are his four former mates who are locked up in Bali.
Their hopes for an early release were – at least temporarily – dashed this week when Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke met his Indonesian counterpart Yusril Ihza Mahendra. They told journos in Jakarta that neither nation has prisoner transfer laws, so more talks are needed.
Lowokwaroe’s Kasi Bimkemas Lapas (Head of Community Relations) Faishol Nur refused MWM access to prisoner Stephens, referring requests to the Australian Embassy: “He’s only just heard of the deal, so is still trying to decide. The news hasn’t been confirmed.”
https://staging.michaelwest.com.au/significant-step-in-push-to-repatriate-bali-nine/
Uncertainty abounds
The yes-no stress on the men and their families in Oz must be acute. And Stephens has an add-on quandary: If the black-letter lawyers contrive a solution, should he stay with his Javanese wife – or head home to his parents in Wollongong and never again see Christine Winarni Puspayanti?
He may have no choice but to be forced to leave under the headline deal brokered by Anthony Albanese with President Prabowo Subianto. If deported, could Christine, 47, follow and settle? Maybe – but it’ll take a labyrinth of bureaucracy and a hill of cash to overcome, for he already owes thousands to the Australian government for jail support.
If he’s released on parole in Australia, will Indonesia allow re-entry? It seems that boarding gate may be forever closed. Minister Yusril reportedly said:
We’re transferring them to their countries so they can serve their sentence there, but if the countries want to give amnesty … it’s their right.
These crims could have been out long ago had they been cuffed on Australian tarmac as the Boeing’s turbines cooled. The Feds knew the conspirator’s plans and were tagging closely. But they could not arrest them before they left, and instead, they were arrested at Ngurah Rai airport en route back to Australia with much more dire consequences.
Martin Stephens
Stephens was originally recruited by Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. They offered the naïve barman an all-expenses holiday and a slice of the expected $4m from selling the drug stash Down Under.
All were tried and convicted for carrying 8.3 kg of heroin. The ringleaders got death – their male mules’ life. The only woman, Renae Lawrence, was deported in 2018. The remaining four are in Bali’s Kerobokan Prison. Stephens was shifted in 2014 to Lowokwaroe in East Java – he says to be closer to Christine.
In a 2020 face-to-face with this journalist, Stephens said: “I did wrong. Smuggling was my big mistake. I’m asking for a second chance. I’d never been convicted before of any crime. Christine is struggling. My parents in Australia are doing it hard because of me. I want to care for them (they visited last year).
Why should they keep paying for my first fault? What’s served by keeping me behind bars? I can do more good warning of the dangers of drugs.
“I’m borderline autistic. That caused problems when I was a kid. Now I’m more mature. I’ve learned the hard way. I got out of my depth. I’ve always taken responsibility for my mistakes. I’m proud of that.”
Stephens, the self-styled ‘baby’ of the Bali Nine, met Christine when she was visiting as a part of a church group, and they married in 2011. Jail staff say, “he’s got fat and has become spiritual.”
The five are serving life for crimes that would have put them inside for maybe a decade had they faced Australian courts. A courier with an otherwise clean record and uninvolved in planning would likely get under ten years, with half spent on probation.
Prisoners plight
It’s hard to find much public sympathy for the prisoner’s plight but reasonable observers may say the men have done their time. They weren’t only casualties of greed and stupidity, but they were victims of police stuff-ups and Indonesian politics – in the wrong country at a tricky time.
A hot ‘Say No to Drugs’ crusade was flaring across the Archipelago when the gang was caught; huge street billboards hammered the English-language slogan propped by pix of stern politicians and police chiefs.
A National Narcotics Agency (Badan Inteligensi Nasional – BIN) claim that 33 users were dying daily went largely unchallenged by the media. It was a pluck-from-anywhere figure.
Into this contrived moral morass tumbled the Bali Nine. Their well-publicised arrests were supposed to intimidate and deter. Nothing changed – new traders filled the gap; they calculated the odds of getting caught, shrugged and carried on recruiting the desperate and expendable.
In one year, 39 death sentences for drug-related offences were handed down by judges basking in public applause. The intensity and acceptance of the BIN crusade suggest a new legal approach is unlikely. Amnesty International campaign manager Puri Kencana Putri wrote that this accounted for
a staggering 81 per cent of all new death sentences.
By comparison, only 17 per cent were for murder, and the remaining two per cent for terrorism.”
Yet Indonesia is creeping towards abolition. Last year, the kill squads reportedly had more than 500 on the wait list, but their M16s have been on safety since 2016. A new law converts an extreme sentence to life if the wicked one has been contrite and well-behaved for two years.
Clemency pleas
Clemency pleas by Stephens were flicked aside by former president Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo. He had no tough-guy military background and perhaps needed to impress the electorate. His successor, former military strongman Prabowo Subianto, doesn’t need a status boost, hence the deportation deal.
Lowokwaroe Prison, where Stephens is held, was built by the Dutch in 1918 and later enlarged to hold 1,300 men. The roll call is now 2,649. Faishol Nur says the Australian has his own cell while locals are packed up to 20 in a room. In the earlier interview, Stephens said the Malang jail was “100 per cent better” than Kerobokan prison in Bali, where the other four remain.
Also known as Hotel K, the Bali clink was designed for 300 but holds five times more, mainly drug offenders. A gang riot in 2015 that spilt outside left four dead.
“I have no complaints about the Australian government and the AFP, which saved my life,” Stephens said in the earlier interview. “If I’d been caught in Sydney and confessed, the drug syndicate would have had me killed.
“I teach English and play the seruling (traditional bamboo flute), but I haven’t learned Indonesian. I want to keep my Australian identity and avoid getting involved in faction fighting.”
Stephens said his family and faith sustain him: “I’ve never contemplated suicide. That’s not me. No one sees your struggles – only your errors. Doesn’t everyone deserve a second chance?”
BRICS and Bats: the global world order is changing, but who would know?
Duncan Graham has a Walkley Award, two Human Rights Commission awards and other prizes for his radio, TV and print journalism in Australia. He now lives in Indonesia.