News Service from House Harris

Qld: Bali drug mules jailed for five years

BRISBANE, Dec 5 AAP - Three people linked to the Bali Nine heroin smuggling syndicate have been jailed for five years.

The Supreme Court in Brisbane was told Shaode Cao, 22, Francis Vui Jun Lee, 25, and Alice Yun Hsuan Yang, 22, each travelled to Bali twice in 2004 after being offered $10,000 to act as drug mules.

They strapped packages of heroin to their bodies and took it back to Australia under the instruction of the Bali Nine ringleader, Myuran Sukumaran.

Sukumaran remains on death row after his arrest in Indonesia with eight other Australians in April 2005.

During the trial in Brisbane the court was told other Bali Nine members - including Renee Lawrence and Andrew Chan - also travelled to Bali with Cao, Lee and Yang on the first successful drug run.

The second drug run was aborted at the last minute after Sukumaran failed to obtain drugs at the desired price.

The court was told the couriers received training in Bali on how to strap the drugs to their bodies, and that they were ordered to purchase baggy clothes to make the smuggling less obvious.

Upon return to Australia after the first run some of them complained about the strapped drugs cutting off their circulation.

Cao, Lee and Yang pleaded not guilty to two counts of conspiring to import prohibited goods into Australia, claiming they travelled to Bali for innocent reasons.

However they were found guilty on Friday following an eight-day trial.

Their defence counsellors described the trio as "naive and vulnerable", but Justice Debra Mullins said they should have known the difference between right and wrong.

"They may have been vulnerable but they each had the capacity to say `no' and they elected to engage in this criminal activity," she said.

"You could have found yourselves in the same position as the Bali Nine."

Cao, Lee and Yang will spend two and a half years in jail before they are eligible for parole.

Three others have already been sentenced for their involvement as mules in the drug syndicate.

AAP cf/pjo/mo