Three Underage Indonesian Citizens Released from Australian Prison

Three underage Indonesian Citizens were released from the Albany and Paderlup regional prison, West Australia. Australian Attorney General Nicola Roxon MP announced the release on Tuesday, 19 June 2012.

In response to such release, the Director of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Dewi S. Wahab, said that the Indonesian government is pleased with the news.

“Despite being quite pleased about the release, we wish that the Australian government take the same action for all the innocent [Indonesian underage] kids by releasing them,” Dewi said.

Indonesian government, she said, has always actively provided assistance and facilitation to release all underage Indonesian Citizens who are locked behind the bars of Australian prisons.

Dewi was informed that the release followed a discovery of new information that indicates the three Indonesian Citizens could be underage when they committed the violation that drove them as suspects.

The decision to release the three earlier from prison was considered to be extraordinary circumstances by Attorney General Roxon.

“According to our view, the three suspects are now adults. However, the documents provided by the Indonesian Embassy indicate that one of the three crews is still underage,” Roxon explained.

According to the Foreign Ministry’s record, this matter was a response to the previous release of three Indonesian Citizens on 17 May 2012 and another release of four Citizens on 6 June 2012. In total, there are currently 10 Indonesian Citizens released from the Australian prisons.