The Denpasar District Court has sentenced Peruvian national Guido Torres Morales to 17 years in prison for smuggling 947.5 grams of cocaine into Bali.
“We sentence Guido Torres Morales to 17 years in prison … and a fine of IDR2 billion (US$142,502),” presiding judge Ida Ayu Adnyana Dewi told the court yesterday, as reported by state news agency Antara.
Morales is guilty of violating Indonesia’s notoriously harsh drug laws, though judges said that his good behavior during trial and the fact that he confessed to his crimes were considered as extenuating circumstances in his final sentencing.
Prosecutors previously demanded Morales be sentenced to 18 years in prison.
The 55-year-old was arrested earlier this year in June, after arriving in Denpasar on a flight from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Authorities said Morales attempted to smuggle 125 packets of cocaine by swallowing them.
However, customs officer grew suspicious during security check and Morales was later brought in for an x-ray examination, during which they identified suspicious items on his digestive system and later confirmed it to be cocaine.
According to a report from Kumparan, Guido told authorities that he had acquired the drugs from an unknown person during his flight from Lima, Peru to Buenos Aires, Argentina, who said someone will wait for him when he arrives in Bali.
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