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'€˜Drug Queen'€™ sentenced to death for leading syndicate

The Supreme Court has once again sentenced to death Meirika Franola, notoriously dubbed Indonesia’s “drug queen”, after being spared the death penalty during Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s presidency

Fedina S. Sundaryani (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Fri, December 4, 2015

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'€˜Drug Queen'€™ sentenced to death for leading syndicate

T

he Supreme Court has once again sentenced to death Meirika Franola, notoriously dubbed Indonesia'€™s '€œdrug queen'€, after being spared the death penalty during Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono'€™s presidency.

Supreme Court spokesman Suhadi said that the court'€™s decision to give the death penalty to Meirika, commonly known as Ola, was not based on her initial crime, for which she had been granted clemency by Yudhoyono in 2011, but for controlling a drug smuggling ring from inside Tangerang Penitentiary.

'€œThe person in question [Ola] was sentenced to death at the end of November because she was found guilty of trafficking drugs from inside a prison,'€ he said on Thursday.

Ola was originally sentenced to death on Aug. 22, 2000, by the Tangerang District Court for attempting to smuggle 3 kilograms of cocaine and 3.5 kilograms of heroine to London through Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.

Then president Yudhoyono decided to grant her clemency as she had expressed remorse for her crimes, and her sentence was downgraded to life-imprisonment.

However, just a year after she was granted clemency, the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) apprehended drug smuggler Nur Aisyah attempting to smuggle 775 grams of crystal methamphetamine from India to Indonesia at the Husein Sastranegara International Airport in Bandung.

Aisyah reportedly admitted that she was merely a courier in the drug smuggling ring and had received orders to carry the drugs from Ola.

She was allegedly introduced to Ola through her boyfriend, who was serving his sentence at Tanjung Balai Penitentiary in Asahan, North Sumatra, and was instructed to fly to Bangalore, India to pick up the drugs before returning to Indonesia with the drugs in a backpack.

In March this year, the Tangerang District Court found Ola guilty of money laundering, but innocent of drug trafficking. However, the court decided not to punish Ola as she was already in prison for life. Dissatisfied with the results, the prosecutors filed an appeal to the higher courts demanding Ola be given the death penalty, a request that was eventually granted by the Supreme Court.

Suhadi explained that it was likely the Supreme Court had decided to give Ola the death sentence because she had not changed her ways during her time in prison.

'€œShe has not been deterred by her time in prison and has continued her smuggling business,'€ he said.

Law expert from Muhammadiyah University in Jakarta, Chairul Huda, said that it was within the Supreme Court'€™s legal rights to hand down the death penalty to Ola, even though she had previously received clemency. '€œThe [Supreme Court'€™s decision] is legitimate because the decision was not based on the previous crime,'€ he said.

Local media have also reported that Ola'€™s lawyer, Troy Latuconsina, may be considering filing a case review.

Arie Soeripan of the Anti-Narcotics National Movement applauded the Supreme Court'€™s decision but said that it was not enough as the drug situation in the country was '€œcritical'€.

The BNN estimates that between 3.8 million and 4.2 million people aged between 10 and 59 had used or were actively using drugs in 2014.

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