Jakarta Globe – AFP, February 4, 2014
Jakarta. An
application by Australian drug trafficker Schapelle Corby for parole from an
Indonesian jail was heard last week in private, an official said Monday, a key
step in her bid for early release.
Authorities
in the capital Jakarta heard her case on Thursday, said prisons spokesman Akbar
Hadi Prabowo, although he refused to reveal the result.
“The
decision is now in the hands of the justice minister,” added justice ministry
spokeswoman Ika Yusanti.
Corby, who
is in prison on the resort island of Bali, was not present at the hearing.
The hearing is expected to be the key factor in the possible
early release of Corby, who was jailed in 2005 after being caught smuggling
marijuana into Bali.
While Justice Minister Amir Syamsuddin has the final say, he
has previously said he does not oppose granting Corby parole.
Authorities on Bali have already recommended the
36-year-old’s early release but her parole bid has for months been bogged down
in bureaucratic wrangling.
However it received a boost when Indonesian authorities
granted a French drug smuggler an early release last month. Michael Blanc is
one of the few foreigners to have been freed on parole in recent years.
Corby’s case has attracted huge publicity in Australia, and
in March last year the then-foreign minister Bob Carr offered Jakarta a formal
guarantee that she would comply with her parole conditions.
Corby was caught trying to smuggle 4.1 kilograms of
marijuana into Bali but has always maintained her innocence.
She was originally given 20 years but has received several
remissions and a sentence cut of five years from the president after she filed
an appeal for clemency.
If granted parole, Corby would still be bound to live on
Bali and obliged to report regularly to authorities. She would live with her
sister.
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