Aussie surfer accused of drunken rampage in Sharia-ruled Aceh faces the lash and five years prison as locals threaten to burn down his hotel!

“He got out of his room naked… He hit almost everyone who was on the street.”

An Australian surfer who until a couple of nights back was enjoying the ripe fruits of the Mentawais is facing a helluva storm after being arrested following a wild melee outside the exclusive Moon Beach resort on the Sumatran island of Simeulue. 

Bodhi Mani Risby-Jones, who is twenty-three and from the Queensland holiday hamlet Noosa, is “accused of an alcohol-fuelled, naked rampage outside a beachside resort that left a passer-by in hospital and prompted an angry mob of residents to threaten to burn down the hotel.”

The island’s head cop Jatmiko said Risky-Jones had been drinking vodka before emerging from his room naked. 

“The security man attempted to stop him but got hit at the neck and fell down,” alleged Jatmiko. “He then went on to the street and disturbed passers-by. He hit almost everyone who was on the street.”

Risby-Jones is also accused of hitting a motorbike rider and throwing the moto onto him after he fell into a gutter. The resulting leg wound, says the cop, needed fifty stitches,. 

In retaliation, furious onlookers then tried to burn down the resort. 

“The people got angry and almost put the resort on fire. Luckily, local police and the village head managed to calm down the mob.”

Now, up here in northern Sumatra Islamic law, aka Sharia, rules in morality matters which means happy homosexuals, wild swingers and boozers can, and often are, publicly caned. 

Because the motorbike rider’s wife accused Risby-Jones of violence and not drinking, his case is being investigated under Article 351 of the Indonesian penal code, which carries a max of five years in jail. 

Howevs, authorities haven’t ruled out investigating the boozing angle.

Two years ago, three men were given forty lashes of the cane for drinking in public, although non-Muslims can choose Sharia, which is swift, if cruel, or Indonesia’s penal code which, like most legal processes, can be a labyrinth that’ll drag you and your credit card into the darkest hole for months, years.

Sometimes better to take your lickings and move on.