Bali 9: The Untold Story (27 page)

Matthew Norman, the youngest of the group, was just eighteen when he was arrested. By the time of the judicial review hearing in June 2007, he was twenty, and had filled out and matured considerably. He now looked more like a young man than a frightened teenager and his courtroom plea said much about what his life was like when he had made the decision to become involved in the heroin gang. ‘I fully accept the Indonesian authorities have every right to punish me because I broke the law and in doing so I have brought shame on my country, my family and upon myself. Since I have been on death row I have learned a great deal about myself. I realise that I was foolish and did not really think about the consequences that I would face. Admittedly I was stupid to believe that I wouldn’t get caught breaking the law but at the time I was at a point in my life where I didn’t care too much about myself or anything or anyone else. I must however take responsibility for my actions but I hope that the Indonesian authorities will give me a second chance to prove that I can turn my life around…I wish to ask most respectfully that you accept this personal expression of profound remorse and allow my life to be spared and that I might have an opportunity to one day return to Australia where I can be closer to my family and where I can participate in rehabilitation programs to help me become a better person and an example to other young people to deter them from making the
same mistakes I have made. I am deeply, deeply sorry to the Indonesian people and hope that they might forgive me of my foolishness.’

Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen’s personal plea was in a similar vein. Being in jail had opened his eyes to the evil of drugs. ‘I’ve seen the reality of drugs and the result it caused. There’s only one outcome out of it, which is, there’s nothing good that can come out of it.’ He told how his own stupidity had brought unimaginable pain and suffering to his family. ‘Even if I spent the rest of my life trying to make things right again. That won’t be nearly enough. But I do want to try. For the rest of my life I will spend trying to make everything right. There are no words to explained (sic) how deeply sorry I am for what I have done. So let me show you how sorry I am by my actions. Please give me the chance for that to happen. I know that one day I will be able to make a difference in the world. My fate is in your hands, let me finish what I have started, which is to remend (sic) the hurt that I have caused. And to better myself as a human being so that I could help others.’

Si Yi Chen acknowledged that he too had done wrong and should be punished—just not so severely. He had learned much since being arrested and foremost was the importance of his family. ‘I’ve learned how childish I was when I believe I will not get caught when I have broken the law and foolish to break the law for the first time of my life…From the bottom of my heart I hope that the Indonesian authorities will give me a second chance for the most foolish mistake I made in
my life. I hope I can have the chance to become a better person…All I hope is a chance to live…I wish to ask most respectfully that you accept this personal expression of profound remorse and give me the chance to live. Please give me the opportunities (sic) that I can return to Australia and look after my two sick parents and a chance to act the duties of a son. Also a chance to teach the younger people and to guide them not to make the same mistake I have made. From the bottom of my heart I am deeply sorry to the people of Indonesia and I hope they will forgive me for the foolish mistake I have made.’

Both Chen and Norman also thanked the guards at Kerobokan Jail for their guidance, saying that even if they are executed they will be grateful to the guards. In a statement published on the Foreign Prisoner Support Service website Chen also told of his fervent hope that other people would take heed. ‘I hope that if nothing else, some young person might see what has happened to me and make better choices for themselves. It’s not worth the risk!’ Chen wrote.

Several months after the hearing was finished the Denpasar District Court judges presiding over the judicial review hearing completed a report of the proceedings, which was sent to the Supreme Court in Jakarta. It recommended that the Supreme Court dismiss the appeals of the three young men. Under the system of Indonesian judicial reviews, the oral evidence and argument is generally heard by judges in the lower court that dealt with the initial trial, and then their
recommendation and written reports of the hearing are sent to the Supreme Court which, behind closed doors, convenes a bench of judges who review all the evidence and make a ruling. Unlike the earlier appeals, there is no risk that a sentence can be increased on a judicial review. There is also no time limit on when the decision is made and, in fact, it wasn’t until March 2008 that the Melasti Three discovered their fate. Yet another group of judges met, and commuted the death penalty to life imprisonment for Matthew Norman, Si Yi Chen and Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen. They felt like their dead souls had been restored to life. They and their families and lawyers were overjoyed. This time the judges deemed that because they were not big-fish drug dealers making a living from the trade, and because they were not recidivists, they deserved mercy. One of the three judges to determine the case, Judge Nyak Pha, said the trio were not the masterminds. He revealed that the three judges on the case had been unanimous in their decision to reduce the penalty to life. The decision gave renewed hope to the three members remaining on death row.

Meanwhile lawyers for Rush, Chan and Sukumaran were turning their minds to the next step in the battle—lodging a judicial review application. But they were not rushing into it. Apart from Presidential clemency it was their last hope, and a pardon from President Yudhoyono did not look likely. Only days after the Constitutional Court ruling, the President rejected clemency pleas from five foreign drug smugglers from Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan and Brazil.

M
artin Stephens walked across the smoky and crowded visiting area. He had noticed a woman with long brown hair and an engaging smile and he wanted to meet her. ‘Hi, I am Martin,’ he said, taking her hand and kissing it.

It was June 2005, and Christine Puspayanti was visiting the jail with a friend whose boyfriend was locked up. She and Martin started talking and, for two weeks after the hand-kissing episode, she visited and talked with him every day. Before long Martin knew that this Javanese woman was ‘the one’. Christine and Martin attended Sunday church services at the jail together and prayed that God would bless their relationship. Christine repeatedly asked God to bring them together, if Martin was meant for her; if their relationship was not meant to be, God should separate them.

Martin fell in love with Christine quickly. Now he just can’t imagine life without her. She lives near the jail, visits every day, often twice a day, bringing food and necessities prisoners cannot get inside the jail. Christine has always said it was Martin’s ‘good heart’ that she most admired, along with his solidarity with and kindness toward other prisoners. And she doesn’t care how long she has to wait before they can live together outside the jail walls. God, she says, makes her strong and helps her with the waiting. Christine believes it is God’s will that she and Martin met and fell in love in the first place and she is undeterred by the fact that, for a large part of their lives, she will provide her partner’s only access to the world outside Kerobokan. ‘I will wait until he gets out of the jail. I don’t care, no problem, God gives me strength.’ Martin calls her ‘My love’ and Christine’s daughter Laura calls him ‘Daddy’. The couple hopes to one day have their own children.

Their intentions became public in December 2006 when, at a jail church service in the lead-up to Christmas, Martin greeted Christine’s arrival with a huge public kiss and cuddle. At the same service the pair asked a pastor to bless their relationship and pray for their future together.

Christine’s parents initially objected to the relationship but have since come around. Jail authorities have said the couple can marry behind bars but won’t be allowed a honeymoon or conjugal visit to celebrate the big day—not officially anyway. So far they have not set a date for nuptials as both want the appeal process to be over before
they think about the wedding, at which Martin wants his family—his parents, brother and grandmother. Martin and his lawyers are planning to lodge a judicial review appeal against his life sentence in the hope of winning him a reduced sentence but are in no hurry.

Martin is not the only member of the group to have found love or a relationship behind bars. Those on the inside say everyone needs someone to talk to and someone to listen. While the Australian Consulate in Bali does a monthly grocery shop for them, they are reliant on people on the outside to bring them many things in order to live comfortably. Andrew Chan has had a close relationship with a local woman, as has Myuran Sukumaran. Others, like Scott Rush and Michael Czugaj, boast close friendships with young women who visit from overseas.

For the Bali Nine and indeed for all prisoners at Kerobokan Jail, life is very different from when they first arrived. The jail has been transformed. The Bali Nine men were moved to one cell block and a new jail boss, Ilham Djaya, was installed. Ilham made it a priority to clean up the corruption which had infiltrated the prison. His influence remains tangible. Gangs and drug dealers no longer run the jail and the drab surrounds have been beautified to such an extent that the gardens in some areas resemble the ones around villas, complete with stone statues, waterfalls and Balinese symbols to ward off evil.

In the past many local prisoners were regularly seen hanging around the front entrance, outside the jail,
allowed in and out at will and often permitted to go home or out shopping when they wanted. Money often bought those privileges but with Ilham’s arrival this commerce stopped. These days the only prisoners out the front are sweeping and picking up rubbish in the carpark, under the eye of a guard in a new uniform.

However, Ilham was under no illusions about the magnitude of the task. Normally, he said, problems in an institution can be fixed over a period of a few months but after a year his job was nowhere near done.

Before coming to Bali, Ilham worked at Nusa Kambangan, the island jail off Central Java, known as the Alcatraz of Indonesia, and at two jails in Central Java. But Bali was the worst in terms of the culture, according to Ilham, and posed the biggest challenge. For their own safety, his wife and three young children continued to live in Java during his time at Kerobokan. He didn’t care that he had few friends. ‘It doesn’t matter that people don’t like me,’ he said, noting that he has no trappings of wealth, like gold rings and fancy watches. The money of prisoners, often paid to secure favours, is to him ‘haram’ or dirty. The function of a jail is to make people better citizens, Ilham said. ‘If a jail can’t make people better it’s useless.’

After his arrival many guards were sacked or driven out and many prisoners, especially the heavyweights considered to be gang leaders with influence inside, were moved to other jails on Java. This included one man serving thirteen years for drugs and hand grenade possession. This prisoner’s cell, in which he spent little
time, had become like a five-star hotel, complete with telephone line and satellite TV dish. Ilham changed that immediately. He cut the phone line, took away the satellite dish and sent the man packing to another jail, to be someone else’s problem. ‘His roots were throughout the whole jail,’ Ilham remembers. He also sent away many others known to have been involved in the Bali crime gang called Laskar Bali, which was then said to hold enormous sway inside jail.

By and large many prisoners agree that things improved after Ilham’s crackdown. There is less evidence of the ugly standover tactics that once dominated jail life, less drug dealing and less need to pay bribes to secure favours or even those things to which everyone is officially entitled. The flip side is that favours and privileges are harder to come by, sometimes making life more difficult. Bribes of course continue to be part of jail life. As with the rest of Indonesia, it will take a long time before that changes.

Conjugal visits, known colloquially as
cuti
—which actually means holiday or leave—used to be allowed. For a fee of about 300,000 Rupiah ($AU45) or less, payable to an obliging guard, a male prisoner and his girlfriend could get a room during visiting times for sexual encounters. Guards have also been known to secure the services of a prostitute for prisoners suffering from lack of female attention. This practice was alleged to keep prisoners calm and tension at manageable levels. But after Ilham’s arrival at the jail it first became more difficult and expensive to arrange rooms for
cuti
sex—sometimes costing 800,000 Rupiah or more—and then it became a memory.

It also became harder to ‘buy’ a more luxurious or individual cell .

Visitors say it still costs 5000 Rupiah in ‘administration fees’ to get in the front door for visits and another 5000 to get a prisoner called from their cell. But the collection box, which once went around around so that visitors could pay extra money to stay longer, stopped. All of these changes were part of Ilham’s strategic clean-up.

In September 2007 the jail’s head of security, Muhammad Sudrajat, was arrested and later convicted on drug charges. It was a blow but not a fatal one for Ilham. Instead it meant his bid to clean up drugs, said to be easier to get inside than outside the jail, got a boost, because no longer was one of his trusted lieutenants involved. Sudrajat had worked at the jail for fourteen months when he was nabbed in a sting operation and arrested with
shabu-shabu
(methamphetamine) and some .22 calibre bullets. He was then placed in custody in the police cells. Police said he was a middleman, running drugs in and out of the jail. However his lawyer said he became an addict after forming close relationships with drug inmates. By the time his case came to court he was facing the death penalty, although his sentence, finally handed down in March 2008, was four years’ imprisonment. It is not yet known whether he will be forced to move to the very jail where he was a boss and where he would have earned many enemies.

All eight male members of the Bali Nine were moved to what is called the tower block or ‘super maximum security’. It is a block of cells located at the base of a water tower, fenced around and topped with barbed wire. Many call it ‘the death tower’ because most of those inside, except Martin Stephens, Michael Czugaj and the occasional woman put there because of bad behaviour, are on death row. It was where the 2002 Bali bombers with death sentences were kept before they were shipped to a more secure jail.

The tower is close to the administration block and Ilham can keep an eye on its residents. He insists that the guards report back to him regularly on the activities of their Australian charges and keep records of who comes and goes from the block. Inmates are allowed out but must report to the guard about where they are going and to have the gate unlocked. The area around the outside of the tower block is part of the jail that has been beautified. The grass there is even growing now.

The front door area of super maximum security looks little different from the entrance to the average Indonesian home, with a rack for shoes and posters on the wall. One is a large colour image of Jesus, the other says: ‘I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day and tomorrow does not look good either.’ No one is saying who put it up. Australian flags are draped over some of the barred windows.

Inside there are four cells, a common area and what are known as the ‘rat holes’ or solitary confinement cells. Scott Rush is one of the Bali Nine who has had
reason to contemplate and study the inside of the rat holes. The worst is small, about three metres long and one metre wide, with no toilet or proper sanitary facilities. The other has a toilet area and can fit up to nine prisoners at a time. In more recent times the rat holes have also been targeted for some sprucing up and are in the process of being renovated. If you are in the rat hole you are supposed to stay there and are not allowed out for visits. In the past, as some Bali Nine members know, money could buy temporary release to see visitors. Once, gang leaders could pay to have their enemies locked inside the rat hole, either as punishment or to repay a debt. Ilham’s arrival made these scams harder to run, too—and he ordered that the cells be cleaned up and improved. Despite his departure from Kerobokan in early 2008, the prison is a better place than it once was.

Since their time inside, the eight men have shared cells in various configurations. Who shares which cell is often dependant on the friendships and allegiances of the particular time, as well as the inevitable fallings-out. In the latter part of 2007 Scott Rush was in with Michael Czugaj, Martin Stephens and the other death rower, Emanuel Otchejirika. Si Yi Chen and Myuran Sukumaran were in one cell, with Matthew Norman, Andrew Chan and Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen in another. But given the close proximity in which they must cohabit, the eight have been forced to learn to live together. They have worked to put aside their differences, even those caused by the harsh words used
by some during the trials to describe the members they blamed for their predicament. Now they have to be pragmatic. Bearing grudges only makes life an even bigger struggle. In fact, their survival, their sanity and their health depend on this new tolerance.

During the trials, ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were described in harsh terms by their fellow accused. Chan was said to be an evil human being with no heart. The two were accused of threatening the others into committing the crime and of threatening to kill the families of those who failed to co-operate. Given such harsh assertions, it seems incredible that they now live side-by-side, that ringleaders and drug mules share cells and common areas in something like harmony.

Indeed, Chan and Sukumaran have demonstrated extraordinary kindness. Recently, when both Rush and Czugaj were particularly unhappy, it was Chan and Sukumaran who made it their business to look out for them, almost as protectors. Chan took Scott under his wing and Sukumaran Michael. They made sure that at no time was either of the two younger men left alone and continued to do so until they were certain the rough time had passed.

Chan has become the group’s motivator, insisting they play some sport instead of sitting around. He is popular and has many repeat visitors, perhaps more visitors than any of the others. Those who know him talk of his engaging personality. He also has a cheeky sense of humour. During Christmas in 2006, when he
knew the media would be allowed inside the jail to film and photograph the annual church service, Chan turned up to the church wearing a Queensland police cap—and it wasn’t a fake, either. He wasn’t saying where it came from, though. (Later Matthew Norman would also be photographed wearing the cap. Of the Bali Nine group, he is now one of Chan’s closer friends. Some say that without Chan’s friendship, Matthew would be finding it much harder to cope.) He is also close to Nguyen and Chen.

Sukumaran continues to keep to himself largely, as does Martin Stephens.

The men have built themselves a little gym inside the common area of the cell block. The area also boasts a television, although at one stage TVs were banned in individual cells and were only allowed in the common areas like this one. They receive mail, some of it unsolicited.

With no formal activities, the Australians occupy their days working out, playing tennis and basketball, reading and seeing visitors, many of whom are tourists from Australia bearing gifts of food and toiletries. But in early 2008 that was set to stop as well, with Ilham insisting that he be provided with a list of the names of all potential visitors to the Australian prisoners. Anyone not on the list would need to endure bureaucratic processes in order to be allowed inside.