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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Indonesia: French Drug Smuggler Gets Death Sentence
Indonesian Observer
Friday 17 Nov 2000 Website: http://www.indoexchange.com/indonesian-observer FRENCH DRUG SMUGGLER GETS DEATH SENTENCE JAKARTA (IO) - Denpasar District Court yesterday sentenced French national Michael Blanc (27) to death for smuggling 3.85 kilograms of hashish into Bali. Blanc, who was accompanied in court by his interpreter Jean Cauteau from France, looked pale as the verdict was announced. His parents Jean Claude and Hellen stood up and embraced him. Antara reported that from Denpasar that the panel of judges led by Ni Wayan Mariati found the Frenchman guilty of smuggling and possession. Blanc, who holds a tourist visa, arrived at Ngurah Rai Airport in Denpasar on a Garuda flight from India on December 26, 1999, after a stopover in Bangkok. At 3:25 p.m. he tried to leave the airport through the international arrivals gate but customs officials put his bags through an X-ray machine and detected "strange objects" in one of them. Customs officials opened the suspicious bag. Inside were two diving oxygen tanks that contained the hash. Blanc, who is a chef by trade, confessed to police he had obtained the drugs in Bangkok and planned to sell them in Bali. He was found guilty of violating Article 82 of the 1997 law on psychotropic substances. The harsh law carries the death penalty. Blanc's lawyers Dwi Surya Hadibudi and R.H. Ferdinandus plan to appeal against the sentence at the Bali High Court. Locals said it was the first ever death sentence in Bali for a drug dealer. "This sets a good precedence and should discourage drug smugglers, especially foreigners, from bringing drugs into Bali province," said senior lawyer Victor Yaved Neno who observed the trial. About 10 people have been sentenced to death this year for possession and smuggling of drugs, but none have yet been executed.
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