Schapelle Corby and Renae Lawrence Given Sentence Cuts

Source: www.smh.com.au

Australian drug traffickers Schapelle Corby and Renae Lawrence have been rewarded with sentence cuts as part of Indonesia's Independence Day celebrations.

Corby was handed a four-month remission while Lawrence, one of the so-called Bali nine, was given a five-month cut.

They are among 321 people in Bali's Kerobokan prison to receive sentence remissions, prison head Siswanto said at a ceremony this morning.

"They received these remissions because they have served more than two years of their sentences and they have behaved well in prison," he said.

Corby was given a lesser cut because she broke prison rules in 2007.

Corby, 32, was sentenced to 20 years' jail after she was caught at Bali's airport in October 2004 with 4.1 kilograms of marijuana in her boogie board bag.

Lawrence, also 32, was sentenced to 20 years' jail for her role in the failed Bali nine plot to smuggle more than eight kilograms of heroin from Bali to Australia in 2005.

The other members of the Bali nine were not eligible for remissions because they are either on death row or serving life sentences.

Corby and Lawrence have developed a close but at times fraught relationship in prison.

Lawrence, in an interview with Woman's Day magazine, says she has been appointed to care for Corby, who has become increasingly mentally unstable.

Lawrence says she has watched Corby's condition deteriorate since the pair were jailed four years ago.

Corby has gone from a "strong-minded person" who was determined not to crumble to a "timid little child that cowers when I scold her for doing silly little things".

"I'm the only one she listens to," Lawrence told the magazine.

"She's tried to climb on to the roof of the cells and lodged herself inside a space in the ceiling of her cell.

"She thinks she can get out of the prison that way and it takes a lot of talking to bring her down."

Indonesia traditionally cuts jail terms on Independence Day and some religious holidays.