Former boxer Pical gets sevent-month jail term

Former boxer Pical gets sevent-month jail term

The West Jakarta District Court sentenced former world boxing champion Ellyas Pical to seven months in jail on Thursday for possessing three ecstasy tablets.

Pical, who was the IBF super flyweight champion between 1985 and 1989, was arrested in July for selling ecstasy to undercover detectives in Miles discotheque in West Jakarta where he worked as a bouncer.

Despite the prosecutor's demand of a one-year sentence, the judge said a mitigating factor was that the former boxer once brought international prestige to the nation, Antara news service reported.

Pical, 48, known as "the Exocet" because of his powerful left hook, became the country's first international boxing champion when he took the title from South Korean Judo Chun in 1985 in Jakarta, The Associated Press reported.

A month before his arrest, Pical -- who has a fifth grade education -- told The Jakarta Post he wished the government had provided him with a job once his boxing career was finished. -- Agencies