A Belarusian national, 25-year-old Hanna Liakhava, was sentenced to 8 months in prison yesterday after she was found guilty of bringing 0.1 gram of weed from Spain to Bali. Liakhava, who works as a photographer and reportedly came to Bali on an assignment, was charged with violating Indonesia’s notoriously harsh drug laws.
Both Liakhava and the prosecution said they accepted the verdict, which was four months less than the one-year sentence demanded by the public prosecutor. Liakhava reportedly couldn’t hold back her tears after she walked out of the courtroom.
Liakhava was arrested on October 14 at Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport. Immigration officials said her anxious behavior while filling out a customs declaration form aroused their suspicion. Customs officers directed Liakhava to an examination room where they discovered a small bag of leaves, allegedly marijuana, stored in two small plastic tubes.
According to a report by Bali Post, Liakhava testified that she had smoked marijuana since she was 14 and had bought the particular batch she was caught with while vacation in Spain in September 2017.
After Spain, she traveled to Shanghai, apparently problem-free. But days later, when she arrived in Bali, her plan to combine a vacation with a photography assignments ended in her arrest.
Despite Indonesia’s hardline stance on narcotics, it’s not uncommon to hear of foreigners getting caught in possession of, or trying to smuggle, illegal substances. Towards the end of 2017, Frenchman Anthony Lambert was sentenced to five years in prison after being arrested with 14 grams of marijuana that he claimed was for personal use to ‘ease his pain’ after a difficult divorce.
