An Indonesian court Thursday handed three Hong Kong men long jail terms for drug trafficking, two weeks after a drug lord from the Chinese city was sentenced to death in the country.
Prosecutors had demanded the death sentence for the three men after they were caught in the capital Jakarta with 49 kilograms (108 pounds) of crystal methamphetamine.
But judges gave Ko Chi-yuen a life sentence, while Kwok Fu-ho and Yang Wing-bun received 20-year jail terms each.
“What the defendant has done is against Indonesia’s stance on fighting drugs,” the presiding judge for Ko’s case, Edi Hasmi, told the West Jakarta district court.
Earlier this month, a Hong Kong man, Wong Chi-ping, was sentenced to death for smuggling 860 kilograms of crystal meth into Indonesia. Wong’s case was not linked to that of the three men sentenced Thursday.
Indonesia enforces some of the world’s toughest anti-drugs laws and has been stepping up its campaign against narcotics under President Joko Widodo, who is a strong supporter of capital punishment for traffickers.
Widodo has accelerated the death penalty campaign — so far 14 drug convicts have been executed during his presidency, 12 of them foreigners.
