Released academic returns to UK

Lesley McCulloch has been critical of Indonesia

A Scottish academic freed after spending five months in an Indonesian jail has made an emotional return to the UK.

Lesley McCulloch, 40, from Dunoon in Argyll, was arrested on spying charges after visiting a separatist rebel camp in Aceh region in September last year.

Together with 57-year-old American nurse Joy Saddler, she was convicted by a court in Banda Aceh on 30 December of the lesser charge of visa violation.

After arriving at Heathrow Airport on a Thai Airways flight from Bangkok, she joked: "I think I'm going to get an ear-bashing from my parents.

"The first three months were spent in the provincial police headquarters where the level of intimidation and harassment was awful

Lesley McCulloch

"No-one in my family has ever been in jail, let alone a foreign one.

"But it's fantastic to be back after five months in jail. It has been traumatic."

Dr McCulloch was met in the arrivals hall by friends from Tapol, a group campaigning for human rights in Indonesia.

Founder Carmel Budiardjo, who was herself imprisoned in Indonesia for three years in the late 1960s, said: "She has been very brave."

Intimidation and harassment

Dr McCulloch complained of ill treatment during her time in prison at the hands of the Indonesian authorities.

"The first three months were spent in the provincial police headquarters where the level of intimidation and harassment was awful.

"During the last two months in Banda Aceh prison the living conditions were dire. The bed was a concrete slab and most of the time the water and electricity were off.

"Initially it was very overcrowded but by the end all the women had been released so it was basically just me in an all-male prison."

Ms McCulloch will be reunited with her parents

Dr McCulloch will spending a few days in London before flying to her native Glasgow on Sunday to be reunited with her father Donnie and mother Mattie.

The lecturer will then return to Melbourne, Australia, where she works, to complete a book on the military regime in Indonesia.

But she said she would return to Indonesia if she could.

"It's my work. There is no travel ban on me. But whether or not they grant me another research visa is another matter."

Dr McCulloch attracted the attention of the Indonesian authorities after writing a string of critical articles.

Mrs Saddler, who received a four-month sentence, was released last month but the trial judge told Dr McCulloch she was being imprisoned for a month longer because her actions "threatened national security and the territorial integrity of the Republic of Indonesia".