Thitirat Charoensuk was sentenced to 14 years in prison

Thai woman was sentenced to 14 years in prison Wednesday for trying to smuggle 500 grams of cocaine into the country early this year, media reports said. The West Java Banten's Tanggerang district court found Thitirat Charoensuk, 24, guilty for violating the country's tough anti-narcotic laws. In addition to handing down a 14-year jail sentence, the court also ordered the defendant to pay a fine of 60 million rupiah (5,330 dollars), chief judge Haryono said in the court ruling, the state-run Antara news agency reported. In previous court hearings, government prosecutors had sought the death penalty for Thitirat. Thitirat was arrested in late February with British national Michael Anthony Guevera, Antara said, adding that the cocaine was divided into three packages, wrapped in condoms and carried in her vagina. Indonesia defends the death penalty as a necessary deterrent in a country with a growing drug problem. In July, the country executed two Nigerians found guilty of heroin offences - the first drug offenders to be put to death in four years. Indonesian authorities recently vowed to speed up the executions of nearly 70 other drug traffickers on death row despite international calls for the country to halt capital punishment. Nearly half of those on death row are foreigners, including three Australians involved in the failed "Bali Nine" plot to smuggle more than 8 kilograms of heroin to Australia in 2005.

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Imam Samudra, Amrozi and Mukhlas, also known as Ali Gufron, lodged a legal challenge earlier this month,

latest plea by the three Bali bombers to the constitutional court would not affect plans for their execution.
Lawyers for the three men - Imam Samudra, Amrozi and Mukhlas, also known as Ali Gufron, lodged a legal challenge earlier this month, saying that Indonesia's method of executing convicts by firing squad was inhumane. The three men would prefer an Islamic method of execution by beheading. All three have been on death row since 2003, when a Bali court sentenced them to death for their roles in the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people.

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Schapelle Corby has been allowed out of a Bali hospital

Schapelle Corby, guarded by two prison officers, spent more than three hours in the Gardenia Salon, adjacent to the wing of Sanglah Hospital where she was admitted late last month.Australian drug trafficker Schapelle Corby has been allowed out of a Bali hospital,where she is being treated for depression, to shop, have her hair done and get a pedicure.“She was here from 11am until 2.10pm, guarded by two fully-armed officers,” salon worker Ida Ayu Purnama said.“She was here for a temporary hair straightener for one hour, and a pedicure for one hour.“After she was finished she saw lots of journalists outside, so she was waiting for a few moments inside.”
Wearing jeans, a blue cap and matching tank top, the 30-year-old tried to hide her face when she eventually left the salon.An employee of a nearby market said Corby also did some shopping there on Tuesday afternoon, again with an escort of two police officers.“She spent quite a long time here, almost two hours. She bought some snacks and clothes. She had a look out the door before she left,” he told AFP.
The former beauty therapist is reported to have slumped into depression after Indonesia’s Supreme Court rejected her final appeal in March.Corby is serving a 20-year jail term for trafficking 4.1kg of marijuana into Bali in 2004.Sanglah Hospital doctor Nyoman Rapep said Corby’s condition was improving and she remained under police supervision.“She is always guarded, and it (the salon) is inside the hospital compound,” Rapep said.“She is still undergoing treatment for a few more days … but her condition is getting better.”
Corby was on medication and was being treated by seven psychiatrists, Rapep said.
Corby, who turns 31 next week, has always maintained her innocence and claimed that airport baggage handlers involved in drug smuggling must have put the marijuana in her luggage as she headed to Bali.
But a recent documentary quoted her former defence lawyer as saying he concocted the baggage handler defence.The drugs were found in Corby’s unlocked surfboard bag when she arrived on the Indonesian island for a holiday in October 2004.The head of security at Bali’s Kerobokan Prison Maliki said Corby’s treatment was under the authority of doctors.“That is the authority of the team of doctors. Maybe it is part of the healing process,” he said.“I’m not a doctor, I can’t explain.“When she is cured she will go back to prison, there is no negotiation about that.”

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Forced him to carry the heroin that was strapped to his body when he was arrested at the Bali Airport.

One of the Bali Nine has spoken publicly for the first time on the electronic media about his situation and his hopes of being able to leave a Bali jail, despite that fact that he faces the death penalty.
Scott Rush, who was arrested on drug trafficking charges in Indonesia, has spoken to SBS Television from his prison cell.
He says he never realised the implications that his actions could have, or that it was even possible to be executed for smuggling heroin.
Donna Field reports.
DONNA FIELD: These are dark days for Scott Rush. The 22-year-old from Brisbane is far from home in a foreign prison, with little to think of but impending death at the hands of an Indonesian executioner.
He was originally sentenced to life in prison for his role in an attempt to smuggle eight kilograms of heroin from Indonesia to Australia in 2005.
He appealed, but rather than being shortened, his sentence was increased to death.
Scott Rush spoke to SBS Television's "Cutting Edge" program about that decision
SCOTT RUSH: I just thought it was bullshit. I mean, the fact, like, that any of us get the death penalty is bullshit. I mean …
JOURNALIST: Does that torment you, the thought of dying?
SCOTT RUSH: Yeah, it does, it weighs on my mind every, pretty much every second of the day. I mean, I can't have a normal conversation like I used to be able to because of this. It's always in my mind.
DONNA FIELD: Five other members of the drug syndicate are also facing execution.
In his first interview since the death penalty was imposed, Scott Rush speaks of regret for his parents. And he explains why he became a drug mule.
SCOTT RUSH: I didn't have a concrete job at the time. I was, I was waiting to go to the air force. I mean, I think about this and sometimes and the answer changes in my own head. But, I …
JOURNALIST: But you'd never been overseas, had you?
SCOTT RUSH: No.
JOURNALIST: You didn't have a passport. So, what, you thought there was just a buck in it and see what happens, or?
SCOTT RUSH: Kind of, yeah. I mean, everyone likes a bit of adventure now and then.
DONNA FIELD: Scott Rush was a drug user, and during the trial he said that he was young and unworldly. He said it was threats against his family that forced him to carry the heroin that was strapped to his body when he was arrested at the Bali Airport.
In the SBS interview, he says the decision to join the Bali Nine never sat easily with him and he wasn't aware of what could go wrong.
SCOTT RUSH: Quite honestly, I didn't really want to come here, because I didn't, I didn't feel comfortable. I didn't know what I was risking. I didn't know there was a death penalty. I didn't know anything about Bali, really.
DONNA FIELD: Scott Rush still hopes to be spared the firing squad, and eventually leave his Bali prison cell.
SCOTT RUSH: I feel that I will. I mean, if I've got any sort of instinct. Obviously, I'm hoping that I will, continuously thinking about it every day.
DONNA FIELD: Rush's last avenue of appeal is a Supreme Court review of his sentence. His family will also ask Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to make a plea to the Indonesian President for clemency.

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