Indonesia jails Australian man for drugs offences
A 52-year-old Australian man has been sentenced to seven years in jail for drug offences in Indonesia.
Andrew Roger, a former Darwin resident, was convicted after police found a stash of drugs in his East Java home.
Lawyers for the man are said to be planning an appeal, arguing that he deserved sympathy and rehabilitation because he was a regular drug user.
Prosecutors, however, will appeal for a longer sentence, having reportedly sought a jail term of 16 years.
Indonesia has some of the toughest anti-drug laws in the world.
Indonesian police found marijuana, crystal meth and various pills in the man's home at Surabaya, according to the Australian Associated Press.
The court heard Roger found it "impossible to function as a human being" if he did not smoke at least six grams of marijuana a day.
He is also said to have suffered from anxiety, panic and insomnia without the drug. He has been in Indonesian custody for eight months.
According to media reports, Roger's lawyers argued that a jail sentence would victimise his family, which includes five children from two relationships.
The man told the court he was funding medical treatment for the youngest of the children, a 12-year-old boy suffering from kidney disease.
The case comes soon after Myuran Sukumaran, an Australian citizen sentenced to death for drug trafficking in Indonesia, lost an appeal for clemency.
Sukumaran was convicted in 2005 as part of the so-called "Bali Nine" drug gang, along with another Australian citizen, Andrew Chan, who is also on death row.