Indonesia started moving foreigners and a handful of other inmates from an overcrowded prison on Bali yesterday after two days of rioting, officials said, as troops backed by water canons and armored vehicles surrounded the tense facility.
Schapelle Corby and several other Australians serving time for drug trafficking refused to go, saying it would be too hard to adjust to new surroundings, said Bambang Krisbanu, a security official at the justice ministry.
He said evacuations — with inmates loaded onto giant trucks — would be gradual and voluntary.
Photo: AFP
The violence that erupted late on Tuesday at the Kerobokan jail — which houses more than 1,000 drug traffickers, sex offenders and other violent criminals — was triggered by the stabbing of an inmate during a brawl a week ago.
The prisoners wanted to know how a knife made its way in. They blamed guards, saying security was too lax.
By Wednesday night, the inmates had chased away all 13 guards and seized full control of the compound, said Beny Arjanto, the local police chief.
Photo: AFP
Some climbed to the top of the watchtower and started throwing rocks and a Molotov cocktail at more than 500 soldiers and police stationed outside. Others tried to break down the front gates.
Troops responded by firing tear gas and shots in the air. Others stormed the facility, but they were forced back out 10 minutes later, Arjanto said.
A few inmates have been injured, he said, but none of them seriously. So far, all 60 foreigners were safe.
The decision to relocate them — and 120 women and 13 children — to a prison elsewhere on the island was made as it became clear yesterday that tensions were not going to ease anytime soon.
Some Indonesian prisoners also were being moved.
“We want to evacuate them immediately for their own safety,” said Colonel Wing Handoko, a military spokesman. “We need to make sure they aren’t used by other prisoners to get international attention or as bargaining chips for their demands.
“We don’t want them to be taken hostage,” he said.
Though he would not say exactly where they would go, another police officer said they were heading for Klungkung, a jail about 70km away.
He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to the media.
The Kerobokan prison is about 20 minutes from Bali’s international airport and was built for about 300 prisoners, but houses more than three times that.
Of the 60 or so foreigners, 12 are Australians and one is American, said Anang Khuzairi, a prison official.
Corby and the other Australian inmates insisted they did not want to be moved, he said.
They said they were worried it would be hard to adjust to a new prison.
“We cannot and will not force them,” Krisbanu said.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
PAPAL RETORT: Pope Leo told reporters that he has ‘no fear, neither of the Trump administration nor speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel’ US President Donald Trump has feuded with Pope Leo XIV over the Iran conflict — setting off an unholy row that could have serious political implications for the Republican leader back in the US. Trump has drawn barbs even from some allies over the attacks on the US-born pontiff, who has criticized the Trump administration over its immigration crackdown, the intervention in Venezuela and the Iran war. The president risks alienating the religious right in November’s crucial US midterm elections. So far the unprecedented clash between the leader of the most powerful military on Earth and the head of the world’s 1.4 billion
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with murder and aggravated sexual abuse in Florida in the death of his 18-year-old stepsister on a Carnival Cruise ship, the US Department of Justice said on Monday. Timothy Hudson was initially charged in February and subsequently indicted on March 10, but the breadth of the case was not known until a seal was lifted on Friday last week, weeks after US District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami said that he would be prosecuted as an adult at the request of the government. Anna Kepner had been traveling on the Carnival Horizon ship in November last
RSS