TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
9 Nusakambangan convicts test positive for drug use
Change Size
Maximum security – A dilapidated building is seen on the coast of Nusakambangan prison island in Cilacap, Central Java. Unauthorized people are prohibited from entering the area.
(thejakartapost.com/Agus Maryono)
N
ine convicts serving time on Nusakambangan prison island in Cilacap, Central Java, tested positive for crystal methamphetamine in recent urine tests jointly conducted by the National Narcotics Agency's (BNN) Cilacap chapter, the Indonesian Military and the National Police.
The nine prisoners are serving sentences at the island’s narcotics penitentiary, which should have been free from any kind of illicit drugs.
“We have handed over this finding to the Cilacap Police’s narcotics division for further legal steps. A team from the police joined us [in carrying out] these urine tests,” BNN Cilacap head Adj. Sr. Comr. Edy Santoso told journalists recently.
He said the urine tests were conducted in two of the prisons on Nusakambangan, namely Pasir Putih and the narcotics prisons, last week. Nine of 141 prisoners at the narcotics prison who took the test were positive for crystal meth. Meanwhile, none of 119 Pasir Putih prisoners tested positive for drug use.
Edy added that BNN personnel had also found small packages of marijuana at the narcotics prison. “We have not yet weighed them but it is estimated they are around 30 grams in total,” he said.
The facility is known to have a super maximum security system but evidently it still can be breached by drug smugglers.
It is not the first time security authorities have found drugs inside Nusakambangan cells. Some illegal drug distribution practices even apparently run with support from Nusakambangan prison guards.
The close involvement of security guards in drug distribution in the prisons came into the public spotlight in March 2011. In that case, BNN officers discovered a large drug network operating inside Nusakambangan, which involved three senior prison officials.
Then Nusakambangan narcotics prison warden Marwan Adli and two of his staff members were arrested by BNN officers for helping to facilitate several convicts running drug businesses from their cells.
Marwan and his men were accused of enabling drug convict Hartoni to operate an illegal drug ring from inside the prison. It was later discovered during a trial that billions of rupiah made from the drug distribution went to Marwan, who later used it to finance businesses run by his family.
In 2012, the Cilacap District Court sentenced Marwan to 13 years in prison and ordered him to pay Rp 10 billion (US$757,289) in fines for misusing his authority. Meanwhile, two of Marwan’s staff, Iwan Syaefudin, who headed the prison’s security division, and Fob Budiyono, the prison’s management division head, were each sentenced to seven years in prison and ordered to pay Rp 1 billion in fines.
In 2012, the Supreme Court sentenced to death Hartoni, alias Giam Hwei Liang, and his fellow convict at the narcotics prison, Syafrudin, in the case. At the time, the two convicts were serving sentences of 20 years in prison for drug crimes.
In March this year, Hartoni, 56, reportedly died on Nusakambangan. Authorities said he died after he fell into a toilet at the prison. (ebf)
