McCulloch sentenced
December 31 2002
By Tom Hyland
Foreign Editor
Jakarta
Picture: AFP
Lesley McCulloch behind bars before her trial in Aceh.
Indonesian soldiers in the strife-torn province of Aceh usually get their
own way, so when they detained two Westerners - and women at that - leaving
a rebel area, they would have expected them to come quietly.
Instead, they were met with defiance. Australian-based academic Lesley
McCulloch, 40, refused to open her bags and was allegedly roughed up and
sexually harassed as a result.
In reaction, her companion, American nurse Joy Lee Sadler, 57, did what she
later told an interviewer came naturally: "I slugged the Indonesian
commander in the face." For that, Sadler said, she was punched in the mouth
and stomach.
The pair's defiance has continued in the three-and-a-half months they have
been detained in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, since their arrest on
September 11.
Yesterday McCulloch, a British national who until July worked at the
University of Tasmania in Hobart, was sentenced to five months' jail. She
had been convicted of violating her tourist visa by contacting rebels of
the Free Aceh Movement, which has been fighting for independence in the
province for two decades in a vicious war that may have claimed as many as
30,000 lives.
"The actions of the defendant could have threatened national security and
the territorial integrity of the republic of Indonesia," said Judge Asril
Marwan.
The sentence will take into account the time McCulloch has served already,
meaning she will be freed in about six weeks.
Sadler, who has been on a hunger strike since late last month and appeared
weak and distressed in court yesterday, was sentenced to four months' jail,
meaning she will be freed in just over a week. She cried when the sentence
was handed down.
McCulloch appears to have particularly upset the military with her
published accounts of alleged human rights abuses inflicted by the army on
civilians. She maintained her defiance yesterday, describing herself as a
victim of the Aceh conflict.
"The whole trial process is based on paranoia and fear," she told reporters
in the courtroom. And she told the prosecutors: "You are evil, evil."
The London-based campaign group Fair Trials Abroad, which has been
monitoring the case, said the verdict appeared to be politically motivated.
"Normally for visa offences people are simply booted out of the country,"
said the group's director Stephen Jakobi. "It's got to be politically linked."
Indonesia's legal system is widely regarded as corrupt. Critics allege that
verdicts often depend on pressure from politicians or military officers.
Both women had put up a feisty defence in their trial, irritating the
authorities with their uncompromising stance and denying the charges, which
carry a maximum five-year sentence.
Prosecutor Kamaruzzaman had called for a nine-month jail term "because the
women's actions caused unrest among the people" and because they "tried to
obstruct the court process by giving unclear testimonies".
The prosecutor alleged they took photographs, gathered data and documents
and provided medical treatment in a village in South Aceh where they were
supposed to be on a tourist trip.
The women had argued that they could not refuse when armed rebels asked
them to take photographs of houses destroyed by the military.
In protest at delays in the trial, Sadler, who is HIV positive and suffers
from hepatitis, went on a hunger strike on November 28.
But it was McCulloch who had the most prickly relationship with officials
and who seemed the main target of prosecutors, who at one stage threatened
to charge her with espionage.
- with agencies
http://theage.com.au/articles/2002/12/30/1041196597824.html
