Bali Nine defendant denies funding claim

A Brisbane man has denied in an Indonesian court that he financed any part of the Bali Nine's alleged heroin smuggling operation.

Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, 23, and two co-accused Matthew Norman, 19, and Si Yi Chen, 20, both of Sydney, sat passively as prosecutors opened their case against them.

The three face the death penalty under charges of conspiring to export heroin from Bali to Australia.

They were arrested at Kuta's Melasti Hotel in April along with alleged kingpin Myuran Sukumaran. Police claim they seized suitcases containing 300g of heroin as well as smuggling materials.

Plainclothes police officer I Nyoman Suardana, who tracked the group before their arrest, said Nguyen covered the hotel expenses of at least two accused drug mules, Scott Rush and Michael Czugaj, both 19 of Brisbane.

"I directly saw Nguyen pay the bill at the Hotel Aneka," Suardana told Denpasar District Court.

"But I confirmed it with the receptionist, who said, `Yes, it was the plump one who paid'."

Nguyen was not staying at the Aneka hotel, but allegedly went there to check the pair out on April 17 after helping to strap plastic packages of heroin to their bodies as part of a botched smuggling attempt, prosecutors allege.

Nguyen denied paying for anything.

"I didn't pay the bill at the hotel, and I rarely met my friends while I was in Bali," he said through a translator when asked by judges if he accepted Suardana's testimony.

According to the police dossier, Nguyen allegedly helped coordinate the movements of four alleged mules and promised them a $A5,000 reward if they successfully smuggled the packages to Sydney.

Rush, Czugaj and the two other accused mules were arrested at Bali airport with a total of 8.3kg of heroin strapped to their bodies.

The group's alleged coordinator, Andrew Chan, was also caught at the airport, but with no heroin on him.

The court also heard testimony from six other prosecution witnesses, including hotel staff and taxi drivers who testified about the group's movements in the hours before their arrest.

Melasti Hotel bellboy Ida Bagus Komang Kusuma Yasa told the court that Nguyen and three other Bali Nine defendants were unusually protective of their belongings when they checked-in on April 17, with Norman in particular acting edgy.

"At the time, I thought: `This whitey doesn't trust me'," Yasa said.

The trial was adjourned until November 30.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org/balinine.html
Pubdate: Wed, 23 Nov 2005
Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
Author: Australian Associated Press
Website: http://www.smh.com.au