A French National, Thierry Claude Joseph Verchere (47), has been sentenced to 10 months imprisonment after being caught with 112 grams of cocaine in Bali.

Quoted in The Jakarta Globe, in issuing his decision the presiding judge Parulian Saragih said Verchere’s actions were in direct contradiction to the Indonesian government’s program to eliminate narcotics.

Police placed a street value of US$48,600 on the narcotics confiscated from the Frenchman on January 9, 2014.

Convicted on the lesser charge of possession instead of distribution of narcotics, Verchere escape much harsher penalties for his crime and was sentenced to a shorter period than the one-year sought by State prosecutors.

A conviction for intent to sell and distribute narcotic the same amount of drugs could have sent the man to prison for 20 years.