The last five members of ‘The Bali Nine’ return to Australia after almost 20 years in prison in Indonesia

MADRID Dec. 15 () –

The last five members of a drug trafficking group known as ‘The Bali Nine’ have returned to Australia after nearly two decades in prison in Indonesia, Australian authorities confirmed this Sunday.

“I am pleased to confirm that Australian citizens Si Yi Chen, Michael Czugaj, Matthew Norman, Scott Rush and Martin Stephens have returned to Australia this afternoon,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a message on his website. social

Likewise, he thanked the president of Indonesia, Prabowo Subianto, “for his compassion” in these releases, in the context of a case that dates back to 2005, when Indonesian forces detained nine Australians in Bali trying to traffic more than eight kilograms of heroin.

Those considered to be the leaders of the group, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, were executed in 2015, sparking a diplomatic dispute between both countries. For their part, six of those arrested were sentenced to life imprisonment, while the only woman in the group, Renae Lawrence, was sentenced to 20 years in prison after appeal.

Lawrence was the only member of the group who had already been released, after her release in November 2018. The last member of the group, Tan Duc Than Nguyen, died in May 2018 in prison due to cancer.

Indonesia provides very severe penalties for drug trafficking. After a five-year period of abolition, the death penalty for such crimes was resumed in 2013. Calls from Canberra for a commutation of the sentences of members of the ‘Bali Nine’ were ignored, sparking harsh criticism from Australia.