Scott Rush
Encyclopedia
Scott Anthony Rush (born 3 December 1985), an Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n former labourer, was convicted in Indonesia for drug trafficking as a member of the Bali Nine
Bali Nine
The Bali Nine is the name given to a group of nine Australians arrested on 17 April 2005, in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, in a plan to smuggle of heroin valued at approximately A$4 million from Indonesia to Australia...

. In 2005, on his first trip to Bali, Rush was arrested at Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar
Denpasar
Denpasar is the capital city of the province of Bali, Indonesia. It has a rapidly expanding population of 788,445 in 2010, up from 533,252 in the previous decade. It is located at .-History:...

 with 1.3 kg (2.9 lb) of heroin concealed on his body. After a criminal trial, on 13 February 2006, Rush was sentenced to life imprisonment
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...

. After appealing against the severity of the sentence, in a surprise outcome handed down by the Bali High Court on 6 September 2006, Rush's sentence was changed to the death penalty
Execution by firing squad
Execution by firing squad, sometimes called fusillading , is a method of capital punishment, particularly common in the military and in times of war.Execution by shooting is a fairly old practice...

. On 10 May 2011, Rush's death sentence was reduced to life imprisonment on appeal to the Indonesian Supreme Court
Indonesian Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of Indonesia is the independent judicial arm of the state. It maintains a system of courts and sits above the other courts and is the final court of appeal. It can also reexamine cases if new evidence emerges.-Jurisdiction:...

.

Early life

From Chelmer
Chelmer, Queensland
Chelmer is an inner suburb of Brisbane, Australia located 7 km west of the Brisbane CBD on the Brisbane River. Chelmer is zoned as a residential area, and consists of low-density housing. It has many fine Queenslanders, characterised by wooden verandahs, wide stairways and roofing of...

, a western suburb of Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...

, it was revealed following his arrest, conviction and sentencing, that during Rush's school years, he was expelled from Brisbane's St Laurence's College
St Laurence's College
St Laurence's College is an independent, Roman Catholic school for boys located in South Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was founded by the Christian Brothers in 1915...

 during his Year 10 studies in a drug-related incident. It was reported that Rush then moved to an inner Brisbane school, Marist College Rosalie
Marist College Rosalie
Sacred Heart College, also known as Marist Brothers Rosalie, was a Catholic boys' college located in Paddington, an inner western suburb of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia...

, and graduated in 2002. Media reports also claim that Rush was using cannabis
Cannabis (drug)
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among many other names, refers to any number of preparations of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug or for medicinal purposes. The English term marijuana comes from the Mexican Spanish word marihuana...

 at the age of 15 and has used ecstasy and prescription drug
Prescription drug
A prescription medication is a licensed medicine that is regulated by legislation to require a medical prescription before it can be obtained. The term is used to distinguish it from over-the-counter drugs which can be obtained without a prescription...

s. Further information released following his sentencing, state that in December 2004 Rush pleaded guilty at Inala
Inala, Queensland
Inala is a suburb of Brisbane, Australia, situated in the south-west of the metropolitan area.-History:Following World War II there was a shortage of 250,000 houses across Australia. State and Commonwealth Governments responded by making housing a priority. In Queensland alone over 4000 families...

 Magistrates' Court
Magistrates' Court
A magistrates' court or court of petty sessions, formerly known as a police court, is the lowest level of court in England and Wales and many other common law jurisdictions...

 to 16 offences, including drug possession
Drug possession
Drug possession is the crime of having one or more illegal drugs in one's possession, either for personal use, distribution, sale or otherwise. Illegal drugs fall into different categories and sentences vary depending on the amount, type of drug, circumstances, and jurisdiction.A person has...

, fraud
Fraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...

, theft
Theft
In common usage, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting and fraud...

 and drink-driving. A warrant
Warrant (law)
Most often, the term warrant refers to a specific type of authorization; a writ issued by a competent officer, usually a judge or magistrate, which permits an otherwise illegal act that would violate individual rights and affords the person executing the writ protection from damages if the act is...

 for his arrest in Australia was outstanding at the time of his trip to Bali, relating to A$4,796.95 stolen from an Australian bank.

Alleged trafficking conspiracy

According to media reports, Rush and his Brisbane friend, Michael Czugaj
Michael Czugaj
Michael William Czugaj , an Australian former glazier from Oxley, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland, was convicted in Indonesia for drug trafficking as a member of the Bali Nine. In 2005, Czugaj was arrested at Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar with of heroin concealed on his body...

, met Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen in a Fortitude Valley hotel. Nguyen offered them both a free holiday to Bali, with one media report also stating that Rush was provided a mobile phone prior to his departure from Sydney. Rush, aged 19, and Czugaj, aged 18, arrived in Bali on 8 April 2005 and checked in to Hotel Aneka, the same hotel used by Indonesian police for their surveillance. According to claims made in his defence by Rush's lawyer, Nguyen introduced both Rush and Czugaj to alleged co-ringleaders of the smuggling operation, Andrew Chan
Andrew Chan
Andrew Chan , an Australian citizen, was convicted in Indonesia for drug trafficking as a member of the Bali Nine. In 2005, Chan was arrested at Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar...

 and Myuran Sukumaran
Myuran Sukumaran
Myuran Sukumaran Myuran Sukumaran Myuran Sukumaran (Tamil: (மயூரன் சுகுமாரன்) (born 17 April 1981 in London, England) is an Australian who was convicted in Indonesia for drug trafficking as a member of the Bali Nine. In 2005, Sukumaran was arrested in a room at the Melasti Hotel in Kuta with three...

 at the Hard Rock Hotel in Bali. Allegedly, Chan and Sukumaran threatened both Rush and Czugaj, ordering them to carry concealed goods, or that their families would be killed.

Arrest in Indonesia

Rush was arrested by Indonesian police on 17 April 2005 at Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar, Bali. Heroin weighing 1.3 kg (2.9 lb) was discovered strapped to his legs concealed underneath his clothing. Czugaj, Renae Lawrence
Renae Lawrence
Renae Lawrence , an Australian former hospitality worker and panel beater, was convicted in Indonesia for drug trafficking as a member of the Bali Nine. In 2005, on her third trip to Bali, Lawrence was arrested at Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar with of heroin concealed on her body...

 and Martin Stephens
Martin Stephens
Martin Eric Stephens , an Australian former bartender, was convicted in Indonesia for drug trafficking as a member of the Bali Nine. In 2005, on his first trip to Bali, Stephens was arrested at Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar with of heroin taped to his chest and concealed under his...

 were arrested at the same time as Rush. On 20 April 2005, graphic footage of the arrests and subsequent police questioning of Rush and other members of the Bali Nine was aired on Australian television.

On the same day that Rush was arrested, Indonesian police also arrested Si Yi Chen
Si Yi Chen
Si Yi Chen , an Australian citizen, was convicted in Indonesia for drug trafficking as a member of the Bali Nine. In 2005, Chen was arrested in a room at the Melasti Hotel in Kuta together with three others. Police uncovered of heroin in a suitcase in the room. After a criminal trial, on 15...

, Nguyen, Sukumaran and Matthew Norman
Matthew Norman
Matthew James Norman , an Australian citizen, was convicted in Indonesia for drug trafficking as a member of the Bali Nine. In 2005, Norman was arrested in a room at the Melasti Hotel in Kuta together with three others. Police uncovered of heroin in a suitcase in the room. After a criminal trial,...

 at the Melasti Hotel in Kuta
Kuta
Kuta is administratively a district and subdistrict/village in southern Bali, Indonesia. A former fishing village, it was one of the first towns on Bali to see substantial tourist development, and as a beach resort remains one of Indonesia's major tourist destinations...

. Alleged co-ringleader, Andrew Chan was also arrested the same day whilst seated on an Australian Airlines
Australian Airlines
Australian Airlines was a full-service airline based in Australia, servicing Australian and Asian destinations between 2002 and 2006. It was an all-economy, full-service international leisure carrier and was a wholly owned subsidiary of Qantas, although run independently of the mainline carrier...

 flight waiting to depart Denpasar for Sydney. At the time Chan was arrested, he was carrying three mobile phones and a boarding pass. No drugs were found in his possession.

Criticism of Australian Federal Police tipoff

Lee Rush, the father of Scott Rush, said that the Australian Federal Police
Australian Federal Police
The Australian Federal Police is the federal police agency of the Commonwealth of Australia. Although the AFP was created by the amalgamation in 1979 of three Commonwealth law enforcement agencies, it traces its history from Commonwealth law enforcement agencies dating back to the federation of...

 (AFP) were contacted, on behalf of Rush senior, prior to Rush's departure from Australia and before the commission of the offence. Rush senior feared that his son was travelling to Bali and would commit a drug-related crime. Rush senior claims then to have received assurances from the AFP that they would tell his son he was under surveillance
Surveillance
Surveillance is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people. It is sometimes done in a surreptitious manner...

 to dissuade him from going through with the crime before the group's departure from Indonesia. Scott Rush's lawyers said he was never contacted. It was revealed that the AFP alerted Indonesian police that a crime was to be committed approximately two weeks before the arrests, and had commenced an investigation about ten weeks prior to the arrests. When the Bali Nine were arrested, the news of the tipoff became public and there was criticism of the role of the AFP in protecting the interests of Australian citizens. Commenting on the matter at the time, AFP Commissioner
Police commissioner
Commissioner is a senior rank used in many police forces and may be rendered Police Commissioner or Commissioner of Police. In some organizations, the commissioner is a political appointee, and may or may not actually be a professional police officer. In these circumstances, there is often a...

 Mick Keelty
Mick Keelty
Michael Joseph "Mick" Keelty AO APM , Australian police officer, was the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police from 2001 to 2009...

 was reported as saying:
"One of the things we've got to remember is that we operate within our criminal-justice system here in Australia, and if we only co-operated with countries that had the same criminal-justice system, then our co-operation wouldn't extend very far beyond Australia. We have to work with the systems that operate in other countries, and to a large degree this has been successful, certainly in terms of heroin trafficking."


Rush took action in the Federal Court of Australia
Federal Court of Australia
The Federal Court of Australia is an Australian superior court of record which has jurisdiction to deal with most civil disputes governed by federal law , along with some summary criminal matters. Cases are heard at first instance by single Judges...

 against the AFP for breach of the bilateral treaty
Bilateral treaty
A bilateral treaty is a treaty strictly between two state parties. These two parties can be two states, or two international organizations, or one state and one international organization.It is similar to a contract, so it is called contractual treaty....

 between Indonesia and Australia when information was handed by the AFP to the Indonesians. Rush's case claimed that such information should only be released by the Attorney-General. However, the Commonwealth Government maintained that the treaty only applies after a suspect is charged. The application was dismissed by the Federal Court in January 2006.

In an interview aired on 13 February 2006 on Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...

 television program, Australian Story
Australian Story
Australian Story is a national weekly documentary series, produced and broadcast on ABC Television.Since 1996 Australian Story has featured many Australians from diverse backgrounds and reputations...

, Rush's parents spoke out against the Australian Federal Police actions.
"I was informed at 1.30 in the morning that Scott would be spoken to and asked not to board the flight to Bali. It wasn't until about mid-morning that I received a call from Bob and a distressed tone in his voice he said, 'Mate, we could not stop him, they have let him go through and he's on his way to Bali'. Under no circumstances do I condone the trafficking of drugs - I particularly dislike drugs of any nature, always have. When I received a call from the Australian Government authorities that Scott had been detained in Indonesia for attempting to export heroin, I was speechless, sickened to the gut."


Rush's mother, Christine Rush, also spoke of her disappointment with the Australian Federal Police:
"I feel very let down by our Australian Federal Police - we tried to lawfully stop our son leaving the country, it wasn't done.".

Criminal trial

Criminal trials for the accused commenced in the Denpasar District Court on 11 October 2005. Chen, Nguyen, and Norman were tried together, with Czugaj being one of the remaining six defendants tried separately.

When asked why he chose to travel to Bali on a paid holiday, Rush replied "Basically that he (Nguyen) didn't have anyone to come to Bali with him." Nguyen refused to testify. Rush also claimed that when he met Chan, threats were made against his family:
"The threat made me very frightened, and we were forced to follow whatever they told us to do. I had no opportunity to be away and escape from the threat as I love my family and my mother and my father."

Czugaj confirmed Rush's account of events as being true. Czugaj testified that he and Rush had never met Lawrence or Stephens, both since convicted and of New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

, until they were all arrested together at Ngurah Rai Airport. Rush told the court Chan told him:
"You do as I say, don't mess around with me. I've got a gun with me and I could kill you. If I wanted to, I could kill you right now."

Chan protested his innocence, saying before the court, "A lot of lies have been set against me, but the true reality is I'm not what people put me out to be. I've never threatened anybody in my life." During court proceedings, Rush initially refused to handle strapping material admitted as evidence, saying "No, no", before agreeing to handle the evidence after being urged to by the judge.

Sentencing

During his final plea to judges, Rush said:
"I hope this will be a lesson for everyone, especially my people in Australia, not to believe other people that you do not know well."


On 13 February 2006 Rush was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Denpasar District Court. Family friend Neil Urquhart was quoted in response to the life sentence imposed on Rush:
"We know he's guilty of it, but you know in Australia, the sentencing is totally different. All right, so he's in a different country and I suppose by rights, you should obey the laws of the country and you've got to accept what they say. But it's a bit harsh."


On appeal on 6 September 2006, the Bali High Court imposed the death penalty in what many considered a surprising outcome for Rush.

On 10 May 2011, a judicial review of Rush's sentence via appeal to the Indonesian Supreme Court resulted in a reduction of his sentence to life imprisonment.

Prison life

Serving his imprisonment in Indonesia, Rush receives A$125 per month under a prisoner loan scheme from the Australian Federal Government. On 7 May 2010, Rush was circumcised
Circumcision
Male circumcision is the surgical removal of some or all of the foreskin from the penis. The word "circumcision" comes from Latin and ....

 in the musholla
Musholla
In Indonesia, a musala is an Islamic prayer room found in shopping malls, airports, offices and other sites, as well as standalone buildings....

 of Kerobokan jail by an unauthorised visitor, without the prior knowledge or consent of the jail's doctors, in Rush's alleged effort to convert to Islam. Rush has since maintained that he is a Christian and that he underwent the circumcision for "health reasons," despite the jail being equipped for such surgery. Media reports claimed Rush's actions were symptoms of death row phenomenon
Death row phenomenon
The death row phenomenon, also known as the death row syndrome, is a term used to refer to the emotional distress felt by prisoners on death row. Concerns about the ethics of inflicting this distress upon prisoners have led to some legal concerns about the constitutionality of the death penalty in...

.

In May 2011, there were media reports that Rush planned to marry his American
Americans
The people of the United States, also known as simply Americans or American people, are the inhabitants or citizens of the United States. The United States is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...

girlfriend, Karen Hermiz.

External links

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