Taiwanese jailed for drugs

TANGERANG (JP): The Tangerang District Court sentenced a Taiwan national on Monday to four years and six months in prison for illegally possessing more than 4,700 Ecstasy pills.

Presiding judge Achmad Zaini said that the 30-year-old defendant Cheng Chin Lung was also fined Rp 5 million or would have to spend another four months in jail should the fine not be paid.

The verdict was lighter than prosecutor H. Mursidi's demand that the defendant be given a term of six-years imprisonment and a Rp 10 million fine, or another six-months imprisonment should the fine not be paid.

According to the panel of judges, the defendant was arrested at Soekarno-Hatta Airport on July 24, 2000 with a total of 4,721 Ecstasy pills in several plastic bags tied to his legs.

The defendant had earlier said that he left Taiwan for Jakarta on July 22. A friend identified as Afong saw him off at the airport, and said that he should return to Taiwan soon after a woman gave him the pills in Jakarta.

Upon arriving at Soekarno-Hatta Airport, a woman met him and took him to a certain place in a car with his eyes blindfolded. The woman then gave him several plastic bags containing the pills, and took him back to the airport, still with his eyes blindfolded, the defendant told the court earlier.

Airport security officers arrested him when the detector at the departure gate sounded.

The defendant's defense lawyer, John Kalangit, said he was thinking about a possible appeal. (41/sur)