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Court gives life sentence to 'masterminds' of Rp 1b ecstasy smuggling case
Prosecutors had demanded the death sentence.
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Thousands of ecstasy pills confiscated by the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) are displayed during a "case expose" in this file photo. (Tempo/-)
T
he Bekasi District Court in West Java has sentenced on Wednesday two men involved in an international drug ring to life imprisonment, instead of the death sentence prosecutors had demanded.
Andang Anggara, 27, and Sonny Sasmita, 41, were found responsible for orchestrating the smuggling of 600,000 ecstasy pills from the Netherlands through Soekarno-Hatta International Airport at the end of November 2017.
Musa Arif, the head judge of the judicial panel, sentenced the two men to "life in prison and Rp 1 billion [US$70,015] in fines, or six [additional] months in prison”, kompas.com reported.
Andang and Sonny were found guilty of violating Article 114(2) of Law No. 35/2009 on narcotics.
The 600,000 ecstasy pills passed undetected through airport customs and were transported to Bekasi by another suspect, Waluyo.
Waluyo was arrested when the police raided a house in the Villa Mutiara Gading 2 residential complex in Tambun Utara, Bekasi, where the smuggled drugs were stored. The police also arrested another suspect, Andang's younger brother Dadang, during the raid.
The subsequent investigation found that Andang and Sonny had arranged the smuggling operation while serving separate sentences, respectively at Surakarta Penitentiary in Central Java and Gunung Sindur Penitentiary in Bogor, West Java.
However, the prosecutor still hasn't decided whether to challenge the verdict or not.
“Just think about it for some days,” Musa said.
Meanwhile, another defendant in the same case, Michael Assa, the middleman in the drug operation, was sentenced to 18 years in prison and Rp 1 billion in fines substitutable with another six months in prison. (ami)
