Heroin courier gets death sentence
Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post, Tangerang
A 24-year-old woman cried hysterically as a Jakarta court sentenced her to death for attempting to smuggle one kilogram of heroin from Thailand.
"Aduh, mama, I don't want to die, Mama. I am not guilty, I was deceived by the black man, Mama, I knew nothing Mama, please help me Mama...," defendant Edith Yunita Sianturi shouted as she rolled on the floor of the Tangerang District Court on Thursday.
Presiding judge Maha Nikmah said that the defendant, a resident of Jl. Wijaya Kusuma IX, Pancoran district of Depok, West Java, was found guilty of smuggling the drug into the country through the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport on June 4 this year.
Nikmah said that there was no mitigating factors to give her a lighter sentence since the impact of the crime could endanger the nation's future and could kill thousands of people.
Clad in a long-sleeve white shirt and long black skirt, Edith, a former cosmetic counter sales girl at Pasar Raya Sarinah, bowed her head during the hearing but became hysterical as the sentence was red out in front of a packed gallery.
One of her relatives watching proceedings also began crying loudly.
Four officers from the prosecutors' office helped Edith to her feet and carried her to the waiting minivan.
However, Edith continued crying and screaming in the minivan. "Help me please, Mrs. Prosecutor, I don't want to die," she begged prosecutor Siti Zahara, who also accompanied her to the minivan.
"You can still appeal to the high court," Zahara replied as the minivan took Edith back to the Tangerang Women's Penitentiary where she was being held.
Over the past two years, the district court has sentenced to death 14 out of 15 defendants in similar cases.
The only drug smuggler to get life imprisonment, Malawian Namaona Dennis, sentenced in September last year, appealed his sentence to the high court, which last week sentenced him to death instead.
The other 14 defendants were four Nigerians, five Nepalese, a Pakistani, a Zimbabwean and three Indonesians.
Despite the harsh sentences, the number of abusers continues to increase, because the law enforcers do not prosecute major drug traffickers.
Prosecutor Siti Zahara earlier charged the defendant with violating Article 82 of the law No 22/1997 on drugs and asked the court to give her life imprisonment and pay a Rp 100 million fine.
The Article carries a maximum punishment of death.
According to the prosecutor, the defendant was working as a sales promotion girl for the Poppy Dharsono cosmetics counter at Pasar Raya Sarinah in Manggarai, South Jakarta when a Nigerian named Abu William introduced himself.
Several months later, William proposed to Edith, but her mother rejected the offer.
Edith then fled home and lived in a boarding house with her Nigerian lover who later asked her to hand over US$4,000 cash to his friend called Brother in Thailand in May this year.
After spending one week in Thailand, Edith then flew to Jakarta on Thai Airways flight TG 413 and arrived at the airport on June 4.
Custom and excise officers found three brown packets containing one kilogram of pure heroin in her purse.