T

housands of inmates in prisons across the country, including those at Jakarta's Salemba Penitentiary and Pondok Bambu Penitentiary, have had their sentences cut by between one and six months in a show of goodwill on Independence Day.

Australian drug smugglers Schapelle Corby and Renae Lawrence have had their sentences cut by several months each.

The two inmates are among six foreign nationals serving sentences in Denpasar's Kerobokan Penitentiary to have their sentences reduced.

Corby and Lawrence were each sentenced to 20 years in jail for attempting to smuggle drugs into Bali. Corby's sentence has been cut by four months; Lawrence has been granted a five-month reduction.

"The sentence reduction is the third time *for Corby* after she received a similar sentence cut of three months last year," head of the Ke-robokan penitentiary, Badung Siswanto, said, as quoted by Antara.

He said Lawrence was the only one of the "Bali 9" group to receive a sentence cut. Her eight partners are not eligible for any type of sentence reduction because they were sentenced to either death or life in prison.

Monday's sentence cut is the forth for Lawrence, Badung said.

Nepalese Bhisnu Bahadur Tarki, who was sent to two years in prison in the same case as Corby received a two-month sentence reduction.

Jeffery Paul Lombard of the United States will walk free a month before his one year sentence was to be completed after he was granted a reduction. Shinegori Kuroisi and Toru Moruyama, both from Japan, each received one-month cuts to their one year sentences.

The Kerobokan penitentiary has a total of 20 foreign-nationals behind its bars, most of who are imprisoned for drug-related crimes. Of these, five are serving sentences of between three months and a year; six more than a year; five will spend the rest of their lives in the prison and four are on death row.

Bali granted sentence reductions to 639 inmates in it nine penitentiaries. In Bandung, convicted murderer Pollycarpus Budihari Pri-yanto, who was sentenced to 20 years in jail for poisoning rights activist Munir Said Thalib, received a three-month sentence cut.

Head of Bandung's Sukamiskin penitentiary, Murdjito, said Pollycarpus was among the 472 inmates in the prison granted sentence reductions.

Eight convicted terrorist in Central Java's Sragen penitentiary are not eligible for any sentence reductions, according to penitentiary head Waluyo Martodirejo.

"A decree we've received from the government explains that sentence reductions for the eight inmates have been rejected," Waluyo said.

He said the government had "special policy" regarding sentence reductions for convicted terrorist.

Waluyo refused to name the eight inmates, who are serving between six and 18 year sentences.