Bali drug smuggler arrives in hometown of Newcastle
SYDNEY: Bali Nine heroin smuggler Renae Lawrence has landed in her hometown of Newcastle after spending 13 years in jail in Indonesia.
Lawrence had initially flown with her mother Beverley Waterman and stepbrother from Indonesia to Brisbane early yesterday morning after being freed from a Bali jail overnight.
The 41yearold former panel beater and her family were the last passengers to alight from their connecting flight to Newcastle after it touched down.
Lawrence walked quickly across the tarmac and was confronted by a scrum of reporters, photographers and camera crews who chased her through the arrivals terminal and out the main exit.
She jumped into a waiting white car and tried to put towels over the rear passenger windows before her mother and stepbrother jumped in alongside her in the back seat.
There were no NSW police waiting for Lawrence as she arrived in Newcastle.
Officers remain keen to talk to her about a highspeed car chase that happened not long before she was arrested at Bali airport in 2005 with 2.7kg of heroin strapped to her body.
NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller has indicated a deal with her lawyers was more likely than her being arrested on the tarmac.
Lawrence had earlier faced chaotic scenes when she arrived in Brisbane, where she had to dodge a large media pack waiting to ask her questions.
She appeared anxious and teary as she and her family quickly boarded an airport bus and travelled from Brisbane’s international terminal to the domestic terminal to catch their flight to Newcastle.
Her mother described her daughter’s return to a barrage of media as ‘‘overwhelming’’.
After arriving at Brisbane’s domestic terminal, Lawrence and her mother sat quietly at the departure gate waiting for their flight.
Asked if she wanted to take a moment to talk about her homecoming Lawrence, looking tearyeyed, declined, and her mother said: ‘‘It’s very overwhelming.’’
Earlier at the international terminal, Mrs Waterman begged journalists to leave her daughter alone.
Later, when Lawrence was again asked if she had anything to say she spoke in Indonesian, which translated as: ‘‘Thanks to the government of Indonesia, that’s it.’’
Lawrence is the first member of the Bali Nine to taste freedom. — AAP