(Top: Myuran Sukumaran, Andrew Chan, Martin Stephens. Middle: Si Yi Chen, Tach Duc Thanh Nguyen, Matthew Norman. Bottom: Scott Rush, Michael Czugaj, Renae Lawrence.)
On Wednesday, Lawrence was released after serving twelve years (from an initial life sentence which was reduced on appeal) and has now arrived home. That now leaves five of them behind bars, as Sukumaran and Chan were executed in 2015, and Nguyen died of stomach cancer in May. She has now reportedly returned to her hometown of Newcastle, where she is wanted anyway over an outstanding 2005 car theft charge. Obviously, she's no saint.
But while her and her cohorts' crimes should not be forgotten (even if we consider them forgivable), I am pleased that she now has a chance to turn a new leaf over. Prisons around the world very often feature treatment and conditions which are unquestionably excessive, and inhumane even compared to the prisoners' deeds. Indonesia's Kerobokan Prison, where she spent the bulk of her incarceration alongside the other eight and separate trafficker Schapelle Corby, has been revealed as one such institution; in 2016, former inmate Paul Conibeer revealed it was rife with murder, drugs and corruption.
After Lawrence's release, Norman was granted a media interview in which he congratulated her for achieving that but also expressed hope about one day being freed himself. When she landed at Newcastle Airport, naturally Lawrence had to push her way through a wall of relentless journalists, whose presence there I can understand only to a point. They may have had jobs to do but unlike Lawrence, none of them have just survived 12 years in an infamously dangerous facility with virtually no contact with the outside world.
In conclusion, I say to all my fellow Australians: again, don't forget (or copy) her and her colleagues' crimes, but do let Renae Lawrence now try to get on with her life (and her family get on with theirs, for that matter) and redeem herself.
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