Scot jailed for belief in humanity

The lecturer shares the prison cell in Indonesia with two other women, and electric lighting is only provided on alternate days.

She now faces six more weeks of confinement after being jailed yesterday for breaking the restrictions on her visa in the troubled country.

Ms McCulloch, 40, from Glasgow, claims she is being punished by the Indonesian authorities for her academic research into human rights abuses, including articles she has written on the subject which have been published in the Asian press.

Yesterday she described the verdict by a court in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh as a "disgrace" and accused authorities of offering her freedom in exchange for bribes. She threatened to go on hunger strike in protest at her treatment.

Ms McCulloch, who has already served the bulk of her five month jail term, was sentenced alongside an American nurse, Joy Lee Sadler, 57, who was imprisoned for four months because of her poor health.

Ms Sadler is HIV-positive, suffers from hepatitis B and has been on hunger strike for more than a month.

The pair have been held by authorities since their arrest by Indonesian troops in the village of Aceh on 11 September, on charges of spying and abusing their tourist visas.

Aceh is the scene of a long-running conflict between separatist rebels and security forces, although a peace deal came into force on 9 December.

Ms McCulloch said "I object to the sentence because there is no proof or witnesses that support this decision."

The Australia-based lecturer, who has written critical articles on the regime in Indonesia, went on to accuse the authorities of demanding 3,700 in exchange for lower sentences. She said: "We chose not to pay the bribe. For me it is an issue of my own academic integrity because I work on issues of military and police corruption, which is why I am sentenced to five months in an Indonesian jail."

She added that Mrs Saddler, who was jailed for four months, was already "weak" after five weeks on hunger strike and attacked the authorities for not releasing her immediately.

Ms McCulloch’s mother, Mattie, who lives in Dunoon, Argyll and Bute, said she was "very sad" at not getting her daughter home, but said she was more worried about her plans to go on hunger strike.

She said: "It won’t achieve anything; the Indonesians do not care, her going on hunger strike will have no effect on them."

She added she was "very relieved" that her daughter would be released in February but said she was concerned about the conditions in prison.

"We have been holding on, thinking that they would be sent home," she said.

"My first instinct is to say we’ll appeal, but we may be advised just to leave it when it’s only going to be another month before she’s freed. I don’t know what we are going to do."

Ms McCulloch’s Jakarta-based lawyer, Syarisah Murlina, said it was uncertain whether an appeal was worthwhile.

Speaking through an interpreter, she said: "We need to consider whether to take the case to a higher court because Lesley will have to spend the next six weeks in jail.

"Indonesian law is a slow process and, if we take the case to a higher level, we don’t know how long she may have to wait."

The judge, Asril Marwan, told the Banda Aceh district court that Ms McCulloch’s actions in September "could have threatened national security and the territorial integrity of the Republic of Indonesia".

Since their capture, both women have complained about the length of the trial and the conditions in which they have been held.

The prosecution said the two women had "taken photographs, gathered data and documents and provided medical treatment" in a village in South Aceh, when they were supposed to be on a tourist trip.

They were also accused of trying to contact members of a separatist rebel group, the Free Aceh Movement. The women said they could not refuse the demands of the armed rebels, who asked them to take photographs of houses destroyed by the security forces.

Mrs McCulloch, who works at Tasmania University, said she believed the real reason behind her arrest was the Indonesian authorities’ anger at articles she has written on Aceh for the Asian press. She has complained to the court of being beaten and sexually harassed by soldiers after being arrested.