Italian gets life for cocaine

Italian gets life for cocaine

The Jakarta Post, Denpasar

An Italian man was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday for
smuggling five kilograms of cocaine into the resort island of
Bali in a surfboard bag.

The Denpasar District Court also ordered Juri Angione, 24, to
pay a fine of Rp 200 million (US$21,200), after finding him
guilty of attempting to smuggle 5.26 kilograms of the illicit
drug into the country, Antara reported.

The prosecution has recommended that he be sentenced to death.

Bali Police discovered 29 bags of cocaine taped to the side of
the surfboard, saying the drugs had a street value of around Rp 5
billion (US$588,000).

Angione denied any wrongdoing and claimed that someone else
must have taped the drugs to his surfboard when he made a
stopover in Brazil.

Under the prevailing Indonesian law, convicted drug
traffickers can be sentenced to death.

But the panel of three judges led by I Nengah Suriada, ruled
out the death penalty for Angione, arguing that it was inhumane
and went against religious beliefs, AP reported. Bali is a
predominantly Hindu province.

Courts elsewhere in the country have been increasingly
clamping down on drug traffickers by giving them the maximum
sentence of death.

At least 25 people, many of them foreigners, are currently on
death row for drug crimes. No executions have been carried out in
recent years.

Four of the convicts, in particular Indian Ayodhya Prasad
Chaubey, are facing imminent execution after their requests for
clemency were turned down.

Angione was arrested at Bali's Ngurah Rai International
Airport shortly after he arrived from Bangkok on Dec. 3, 2003
after customs officials noticed a bulge in his surfboard bag.

The convicted Italian drug trafficker was given one week to
appeal the verdict.