A South African man is facing the death penalty for allegedly smuggling tik into Bali, according to reports. Stephen Henri Lubbe is on trial and “threatened with the death penalty”, say reports in the English-language Bali Times.
Lubbe, whose age has been given as 57 and 58 in different Indonesian reports, is on trial at the Denpasar District Court in Bali’s capital. Efforts to determine where in South Africa Lubbe is from proved fruitless on Friday.
According to Indonesia’s official Antara news agency, Lubbe was allegedly caught with 1.54kg of methamphetamine at Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali on Sunday, February 9.
He was on a flight from Hong Kong.
“The officers spotted a suspicious item in Lubbe’s grey suitcase as it passed through the scanner,” said the article.
“The officers opened the suitcase and found a package of white crystal, which was tested and identified as methamphetamine.”
The agency added that Lubbe admitted to the officers that he had been compensated with a holiday to Bali by an unidentified person in return for carrying the drugs consignment.
The Jakarta Post said when Lubbe was arrested he “defended himself, saying he did not know there were drugs in his suitcase”.
“Lubbe… said he was in Bali for a holiday. He claimed he had been paid with a holiday package on the island in return for delivering the suitcase.”
According to media reports, Lubbe breached article 113 of the country’s 2009 Narcotics Law by bringing drugs into Indonesia. This means he could face life imprisonment or the death penalty…
South Africa Today – World News
