A Japanese man who was serving an 18-year sentence in an Indonesian prison for drug trafficking was found dead Sunday, apparently after committing suicide, police said.

Yuki Morita, 40, whose body was found by another inmate, is believed to have hung himself, Toni Binsar, police chief in Bali Island's Badung regency, said.

"He used a cloth to hang himself and we found his notebook with a drawing of a man hanging himself," Binsar said.

An autopsy will be performed on Morita's body at Bali's Sanglah International Hospital.

Morita was sentenced by a Bali court in April 2011 for attempting to smuggle nearly 6 kg (13 pounds) of hashish through the island's Ngurah Rai International Airport in November 2010.

The freelance writer was arrested several months after being released from an Indian prison, where he had served a 16-month jail term for a similar offense.

At his trial, Morita admitted buying the hashish for about $4,000 in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh and said he had planned to smuggle it to Australia.