Ekip
03 November 2015•Update: 05 November 2015
By Ainur Rohmah
JAKARTA
An Indonesian court Tuesday sentenced two British filmmakers to two months and 15 days in jail for working without a permit.
On May 28, Neil Bonner and Rebecca Prosser were arrested along with nine Indonesians by the navy in Indonesian waters off Singapore while making a documentary about the hijacking of ships in the Malacca Strait.
Batam District Court also decreed that the pair should pay fines of 25 million Rupiah ($1,845) -- a lighter sentence than the prosecution's demand of five months in prison and a fine of 50 million Rupiah.
The court granted the defendants' request that their confiscated possessions -- cameras, passports, and documents -- be returned.
Bonner and Prosser fell foul of immigration law by filming a documentary for Wall to Wall Productions -- a subsidiary of Time Warner that has made films for the BBC, Discovery Channel and National Geographic Channel -- without first obtaining a work permit or any of the other permissions required of foreign journalists.
Tribunnews.com said they welcomed the decision, quoting Bonner as saying, "We appreciate [it]. We hope to be deported as soon as possible."
Their lawyer, Aristo Pangaribuan, said they would be freed Thursday if the prosecutor does not appeal.
"They were counted [as being in custody] for 23 days... despite having been in Batam for five months," he said. "We will pay the fines to ensure they can be freed on Thursday."
Last year, two French journalists were sentenced to two-and-a-half months on the same charges in Indonesia's eastern province of Papua.
