Michael Sacatides (center) |
A Sydney man jailed for 18 years for smuggling almost two kilograms of methamphetamine into Bali is still considering whether to a seek a judicial review of his sentence, his lawyer says.
Michael Sacatides was sentenced in April after a shock ruling in which judges in the Denpasar District Court added two years to the term initially requested by prosecutors.
The kickboxing trainer from Wentworthville in Sydney's west has decided against a High Court appeal, preferring not to risk his sentence being increased to the death penalty.
With good behaviour, Sacatides could expect to be out in about 10 years.
However, his lawyer Erwin Siregar said on Monday that Sacatides may still ask for a judicial review in the Supreme Court, the final legal avenue available to the 43-year-old.
'He has accepted his sentence. He did not go for appeal,' Mr Siregar said.
'The only thing we have suggested to him is the extraordinary measure of a judicial review.'
A judicial review, which examines whether mistakes were made in the original judgment and sentencing, would not risk a death penalty being imposed but could result in a lighter sentence.
In May, Bali Nine drug mule Scott Rush had his death sentence commuted to life in prison following a successful judicial review, but the two so-called ringleaders of the heroin smuggling plot, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, subsequently had their final appeals rejected.
Chan and Sukumaran must now rely on clemency from Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono if they are to avoid a firing squad.
Sacatides is also eligible to apply for clemency but Mr Siregar said his client was aware that the president was against showing leniency for convicted drug traffickers.
'Another measure would be clemency, but this is difficult especially when president is least likely to grant clemency for narcotics cases,' he said.
Sacatides was arrested at Bali's international airport on October 1 last year after 1.7kg of methamphetamine, also known as ice, was found concealed in a hidden compartment in the suitcase he was carrying when he arrived on a flight from Bangkok.
He claimed he borrowed the luggage from a man known as Akaleshi Tripathi, whom he knew from Bangkok, where he had been living and working for almost two years.
Source: Big Pond News, August 1, 2011
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