Last week, Julia Gillard communicated with the 14-year-old boy who was arrested in Bali for allegedly carrying marijuana, assuring him that she was doing everything she could to assist.
The teenager, who was detained on the resort island the previous Tuesday, has become the center of significant negotiations involving Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd and other Australian officials who are advocating for his release and return home.
A spokesperson for Gillard indicated that the prime minister was closely monitoring the situation and was receiving daily updates from Australia’s ambassador to Indonesia, Greg Moriarty, who traveled to Bali from Jakarta to manage the case.
“While on a phone call with the ambassador yesterday at the Denpasar police station, she was able to speak with both the father and the son,” the spokesperson stated on Monday.
“The prime minister provided reassurance that the government was doing everything within its power.”
Australia has requested that the Indonesian legal system consider the boy’s young age; he is a high school student from a coastal area north of Sydney who was on holiday with his parents at the time of his arrest.
In Indonesia, children are tried in the same courts as adults, though laws regarding juvenile justice do offer certain leniencies for minors.
When arrested on October 4 as he returned to his hotel from a massage in the Kuta tourist zone, it is alleged that the boy was in possession of 6.9 grams of marijuana.
Indonesian authorities stated that he confessed to paying Rp 250,000 ($29) to a man who claimed he hadn’t eaten for a day and needed money.
In recent years, several Australians have faced arrest for drug-related offenses in Bali, including Schapelle Corby, who was convicted for attempting to smuggle marijuana into Indonesia.
