Always wondered what happened. Do they "pay" and get out but it's hushed up. Or they still show in the system?
Because you never actually see or hear anything ever again apart from the initial orange onesy press conference
What makes papers being sold is the arrest, not the technicalities and lengthy, boring court sessions. Every medias would jump on a new case like dogs on a bone and loose interest past the second session.
In the Soeharto Era (and still shortly after) it was pretty easy to get off the hook for a wealthy local or a foreigner and get rid of a drug charge. Ask to one of my province Bupati, son of an eminent North Sulawesi politician.
Got caughtt with two friends and ice and it never went to court. "Rehab" aja.
Till the end of the 90's bit of money was enough to escape prosecution. In the early 2000 judges, lawyers and prosecutors started to understand that such cases could bring a huge amount of kick backs and started to be much eager to bring these cases to adjudication.
The first prominent case involving a foreigner was the one of Michael Blanc. Bringing back from India a couple of scuba tanks loaded with charasse didn't go well for him. He got caught late 1999 I think and spent 14 years in Jail between Kerobokan, Madiun and Cipinang then another 4 years as a parolee in Jakarta.
I remember when I started to post legal information on LIIF that I got very surprised when an inmate from Kerobokan registered to the forum and PMed me to ask for basic legal information. It was not the fact that he could surf the internet from his cell which surprised me. We all know how Indonesian jails work. The guy was an African and had been left with NO information about how to appeal by his lawyer since he didn't get the money he (lawyer) was trying to extort him! That was the surprise.
After him a few others did the same and all had pretty much the same story to tell. Extortion from lawyers, prosecutors and judges. Were they telling the truth? Well, my own experience of justice tells me that most of the extortion stories they shared were not tales. In my own, non drug related, case, even the panitera tried to steal from me my Oakley sunglasses and when I told him to sod off, believe me, he took it pretty bad.