Bali drug accused Antony de Malmanche taken to hospital

DETAINED: Antony de Malmanche is escorted by Indonesian custom officers to a press conference in Bali on Friday. PHOTO/AP AP140512184157

A Kiwi facing drugs charges in Bali has been taken to a police hospital for treatment.

Antony Glen de Malmanche, 52, from Wanganui, was arrested at the international airport in Denpasar last week. He had travelled to Hong Kong to meet his internet girlfriend, "Jessie", and then went on to Bali.

It is alleged he was travelling with 1.7kg of methamphetamine in his backpack.

Methamphetamine is in the most serious drug class in Indonesia and anyone convicted of trafficking it faces the death penalty.

Today, de Malmanche was escorted by Indonesian police to a police hospital in Bali due to apparent back pain. His family have said he suffers from back pain and have expressed concerns about his health in prison.

Prisoners at both the Denpasar police station, where de Malmanche is being detained, and the notorious Kerobokan Jail, where he will inevitably be transferred to await trial, are given little in the way of food and other necessities.

De Malmanche takes painkillers for serious permanent injuries he suffered in a tree-felling accident while at work in 2002.

He was targeted by Indonesian police on his arrival in Bali as part of international drugs ring, according to Indonesian police.

When he was arrested, he was tagged as a member of an international drugs syndicate, One News reported. "He's been a target of the narcotic drug-smuggling division a long time before he was arrested," Bali Police Commissioner Henry Wiyanto told One News.

His cousin, Tina de Malmanche, said yesterday de Malmanche was not bright enough to smuggle drugs. "I wouldn't trust him with that much amount of drugs to courier. He is too dumb."

According to media sources, de Malmanche had never been out of New Zealand before.

He met a South African woman called Jessie through online dating and she sent him money for his passport and airfare to Hong Kong. He is thought to have flown there to see her.

Tina de Malmanche said she was convinced he has been led astray by a woman's promises. "As his whanau, I can tell you he has been set up. I'm a retired hooker - I know how easy it is."

De Malmanche's family has set up an online Givealittle page to raise money for a lawyer. A New Zealand consul is to visit him this week.

Other family members contacted by the Wanganui Chronicle would not talk about Mr de Malmanche.

But family and friends earlier told media he was born in Dannevirke and grew up in Palmerston North. He had a number of children and was working as an arborist in 2002 when injured in the tree felling accident.

He had ongoing neck and back pain, and decided to retrain for a less physical job.

He finished a computer, literacy and numeracy course at Whanganui Learning Centre in 2011, and may have then undertaken a certificate course in Mental Health Support Work at Whanganui UCOL.

He is also said to have joined a Christian group, and his Facebook page has a number of pictures of him fishing.