Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - Saturday, November 2, 2002
Lely T. Djuhari, Associated Press Writer
Joy Lee Sadler, 57, of Waterloo, Iowa, contacted The Associated Press from provincial capital Banda Aceh, where she and British academic Lesley McCulloch, 42, are being held on charges of violating tourist visas by contacting rebels of the Free Aceh Movement. The offense carries a maximum sentence of five years.
"I am very sick but I won't leave without Lesley," said Sadler. "I did not want to disclose my condition but I don't know how much longer I can hold on."
Sadler said she was suffering from weight loss, general weakness and said her injuries from ill-treatment by authorities had not healed. She said soldiers repeatedly punched her in the jaw and stomach as she tried to help McCulloch during their arrest.
She also said she suffered severe chest pains a week ago, was diagnosed with angina and is being treated with nitroglycerin.
Acehnese police could not immediately be contacted.
Both women have denied the charges and police accusations that they were carrying documents and digital photos of the rebel group that has fought for independence of the resource-rich province for 10 years in a conflict that has killed 12,000 people.
Sadler said she was in Aceh to treat children and old people at a refugee camp. McCulloch, a former lecturer at the University of Tasmania in Australia, said she came to research a book on the separatist conflict.
Indonesian officials said they were waiting for Supreme Court judges to decide where the women's trial will take place. Aceh is 1,760 kilometers (1,100 miles) northwest of Jakarta, Indonesia's capital.
Sadler said her doctors in the United States diagnosed her as HIV positive in February 1997 and informed police doctors when she was brought to Banda Aceh.
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