Win a date with Schappelle's translator !

[gobbledonk]

Hi Carlton,

 

I agree with a lot of what you have said - I was simply trying to outline the 'arguments' presented by the 'boycott Bali' crowd here in Oz. I do need to clarify something though:

 

And then in your last contribution 'until they get a baggage handler who comes forward and names people (instant death sentence for said handler), its prosecution 1 - Corby 0'

Why death sentence? Never done for the posession of cannabis. Also why should this person be prosecuted in indonesia. The baggage handlers are detained in australia.

 

By 'instant death sentence', I didnt mean anything imposed by a court. These people arent operating in isolation, and Schappelle's 'star witness' was reportedly stabbed when returned to jail in Victoria after naming the man he claimed owned the dope. Said owner strenously denied the claim, and I dont think he was ever charged, but we dont know what sort of undercover crap various police forces are currently involved in - he may yet find himself in a courtroom.

 

This is a multi-million dollar industry, even in a small country like Oz - the people who control that sort of money dont take kindly to someone fucking up their distribution network - hence the 'instant death sentence'. If you can pay crims a few thousand to take someone out in a high-security jail in Oz, how much cheaper would it be to have it done in Indonesia ??

 

Cheers,

 

Artie

[gobbledonk]

Eka has a typical indonesian face, and there's millions and millions women like her all over the archipelago ; just travel across Java, from Surabaya to Jakarta, and stop in Solo, Malang, Yogja, Semarang or Bandung, and you'll find more availables "Ekas" than you'll need. Plus millions others much more attractives.

 

That's probably the worst photo of Eka in existence - clearly overheated and stressed, at a very emotional time for her 'client' - but this isnt a beauty contest per se. What impressed me about her was her composure in the courtroom, and her compassion. Whether Corby is guilty or not, she was under intense scrutiny for months on end, and a lot of that stress has begun to show on the defence team.

 

I initially thought that the court appointed the translators, but some of the vision I saw last night seemed to indicate that Eka was part of the defense team. Imagine what it must feel like to have to tell your client that she's been given 20 years for a crime that she claims she didnt commit ?

 

Anyway, its all moot - the coming appeal wont be an 'open court' circus like the initial trial was.

[Zorro]

"This is a multi-million dollar industry, even in a small country like Oz - the people who control that sort of money dont take kindly to someone fucking up their distribution network -"

 

Yes the various state police forces in Australia don't like to see their lucrative perks taken away!!!!

[MisterBlonde]

Strangely enough.....

 

I received a phone call today from a punter who wanted to purchase my product,and he asked me if i give discounts to war veterans...i said i'd give him a 20% discount ( i have a lot of time for the old diggers.)

 

I arrive at his place and get on with the installation,as he sat and watched...it only took a bit of probing to get the old boy to reveal his war stories apparantly he was one of only a dozen Aussies who fought in the Battle of Britain and he regaled me with his stories of his dogfights...he left the airforce as a Brigidier General and then got into intelligence.

 

I then asked him his opinion of the Corby case,and he said that Indonesian intelligence was well known to him,and he even pulled out of his wallet,business cards in Indonesian writing ,to show me some of his contacts.

 

He said that he personally knows the chief judge on the case and that he was actually a Muslim and not a Christian as he states and has a hatred for Australians....he further stated that he had lunch just a few days ago with a good friend of his from ASIS who had just returned from Indonesia...this friend stated to him,that he had been through the transcripts of the court procedure and they were outrageously predjudiced against the defendant...his friend went on to say that he believed that the guilt of corby was probably no more than 1 percent.

 

I might have to review my thinking....

[carlton68]

' I might have to review my thinking.... '

 

MisterBlonde,

you might have to question what you got told.

I am not in intelligence and I am not in indonesia so all I got is the net to look up some info. Could not find a source that states judge Linton Sirait is a muslim. Only pages that state he's christian. A protestant Batak from Medan, Sumatra.

A judge who handled major cases like Bali bombers Amrozi and Imam Samudra and now the Schapelle Corby case. Lawyers would have loved him for lying about his religion.

A judge who lies about his religion and is muslim really, tells an australian about his religion and that he hates australians? That would be enough to get said judge off the case, won't you think? You better get your Brigadier into contact with Schapelles lawyers asap. Valid reason for an appeal.

Would you mind going back and ask him to back up what he said?

 

Btw, when Linton Sirait sentenced Bali bombers Amrozi and Imam Samudra to death I am sure he got a round of applause from australians. But now he dared to judge a nice young lady from australia he gets a lot of negative comments from down under. Double standards?

 

Just one more: He had business cards in indonesian writing. Shouldn't you have said indonesian language?

[Prosal]

Seems to me that many Australians have been acting inappropriately on this issue, by claiming that if you're not a first world country, you can't have a functioning legal system.

 

This trial is only about a western foolish bitch smuggling drug into the wrong country. She happily only got 20 years in Indonesia. If she had been caught in Singapore or Malaysia, she could have got much more. Or worse : be hanged.

 

BTW Indonesian police has apprehended since two years 107 foreigners who were alleged drug dealers. Most were from West Africa, Tibet, China, ect ..... who cared about their trial ?

 

[gobbledonk]

Cmon guys - lets not turn this into a Muslim-bashing episode. Regardless of the judges religious orientation or prejudices (and I refuse to accept that Muslims hate Australians/Westerners by default), he is supposed to be fair and impartial. If anything, it was the media circus and the scuttlebutt surrounding the case (much of it generated by the Corby camp in a misplaced attempt to generate support in *Oz* ...) which would have prejudiced him against Corby, not some deep-seated hatred of Westerners.

 

If you read any guidebook for Westerners venturing to Asia, one of the golden rules is that you dont lose it in public. Mercedes Corby shrieking at the media, then threatening to kill the judges when the sentence was handed down, other supporters attempting to shout 'Schappelle is innocent !' in Indonesian after the verdict - these people didnt help her case one bit. The Bali Police, for their part, seem to have no idea of 'passive' crowd control - can you imagine a circus like that being allowed to proceed week after week in Oz ?

[gobbledonk]

MB,

 

Once again - hearsay. Trying to prove any of the claims made by the 'Brigadier' (LOL !) would take a lot more years than Corby has up her sleeve. I'd imagine that the number of 'Indo experts' has exploded since this case started - I even chuckle at some of the boffins they drag out on Lateline. Its always amusing to watch someone analyse Indonesian political and legal developments from the safety of the ANU in Canberra. Almost as tragic as my own deskbound analyses ::

 

Later,

 

Artie

[Zorro]

Good article from the SMH today.

 

It puts the blame fairly on the shoulders of the Australian authorities for not doing anything to help Corby.

 

Failed at every turn on her home soil

June 2, 2005

 

 

THERE is no point people asserting Schapelle Corby's innocence because they "feel it in my heart" or "looked into her eyes". Such silliness just adds to the near-mystical hysteria which plagues the case of the 27-year-old Gold Coast student beautician convicted last week of smuggling 4.1 kilograms of marijuana into Bali. It is also unnecessary. There are plenty of rational facts which point to Corby's likely innocence.

 

For one thing, blood and urine tests conducted on Corby after her arrest were negative, say her lawyers, which is significant considering marijuana can be detected for at least three months after use.

 

And, of course, recent courtroom allegations about drug smuggling by corrupt baggage handlers at Sydney Airport have bolstered Corby's claim that someone placed the marijuana in her boogie board bag between Brisbane Airport, where she checked in her luggage (via Sydney), and Bali's Denpasar airport, where she picked it up 12 hours later.

 

Adding further credence to her claim was the stunning coincidence that a suitcase full of cocaine was allegedly being smuggled from a South American flight by baggage handlers on October 8, the day Corby flew to Bali on Qantas's Australian Airlines flight AO7829.

 

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AdvertisementThat was just one of the "seven sets of bad luck in one day", in the cynical assessment of Corby's financial supporter, the Gold Coast mobile phone businessman Ron Bakir.

 

Last week in his rented villa in Seminyak, a few kilometres from Corby's jail, Bakir outlined the defence team's grievances against Australian authorities, including Qantas. They "failed to secure the CCTV footage" of Corby checking in her luggage in Brisbane, which might have shown it without the bulge of the pillow-sized bag of hydroponic marijuana.

 

"They failed to secure the weight of the bag [in Brisbane and Bali] or the scan of the bags. They failed to pick up on the 4.1 kilograms of marijuana in her bag because the sniffer dogs were off duty that day." He claims a machine supposed to scan international luggage was switched off "to save money".

 

Bakir, 28, and his friend, Gold Coast lawyer Robin Tampoe, say Qantas refused to divulge who were the baggage handlers on duty on October 8. Tampoe, 38, claims he was told by Qantas that Corby's lawyers would have to subpoena the roster, which was impossible from Indonesia.

 

Tampoe, whose role was to gather evidence in Australia to help the Indonesian lawyers, said the Australian Federal Police refused a request to send an officer to testify about the historic problem at Australian airports of corrupt baggage handlers smuggling drugs.

 

What's more, this week Labor's homeland security spokesman, Robert McClelland, questioned why a customs report into drug smuggling at Australian airports was kept from Corby's lawyers. The report, available since September, revealed that baggage handlers diverted bags containing drugs from international flights to domestic baggage carousels. "It indicates systematic criminality ? that is a material fact that at the very least should have been disclosed to her defence," McClelland said.

 

Then there is the odd case of Steve and Dee, the Melbourne couple who told Channel Nine's Ross Coulthart they had arrived at their Bali hotel in 1997 to find a large block of compressed marijuana in their luggage. When they rang the Australian consulate for help, they were told to flush the drugs down the toilet or "you'll be eating nasi goreng for the rest of your life in jail".

 

As of this week, no one from the Australian Federal Police has interviewed the couple. Bakir cannot understand why Australian authorities didn't inform Corby's defence team of the case.

 

There is little point maligning the Bali court or its chief judge, Linton Sirait, who cannot be faulted on his patience or the transparency of his trial. Nor is there any sense in crazed Corby supporters sending an envelope containing a "biological agent" to the Indonesian embassy in Canberra yesterday as reprisal.

 

The fact is Corby's defence team never gave the Bali court a chance to acquit her because it presented no conclusive evidence to counter the marijuana found in her boogie board bag. But it's not fair to blame members of her defence team because, they explain, they were obstructed at every turn by Australian authorities. "We could only fire the arrows we had," says Bakir.

 

In the aftermath of Corby's conviction and 20-year sentence, the Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, the Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, and even the Prime Minister expressed astonishment that Corby's defence team - specifically Tampoe - had not accepted the offer of two eminent Perth QCs, Mark Trowell and Tom Percy, to help.

 

Tampoe says he never received the calls said to have been made by Trowell or Ruddock's chief of staff, Steve Ingram, offering the silks' services. Tampoe said last week that he could find only one record of any contact with his Hoolihan's law firm. That was a voicemail message left on the mobile phone of his articled clerk, Matthew Gibson, which Gibson found on March 30, when he returned from Bali two days after the defence case had closed. "Of course we would have said yes," said Tampoe.

 

But even if Tampoe's office did fail to respond to messages left, it is a mystery why Ruddock and the QCs found it so hard to contact him directly. He and Bakir have always been easily contactable by mobile phone. Journalists ring them every day. Similarly, the Corby family in Tugun is listed in the phone book and an offer of help could have been made to them, but wasn't.

 

In any case, none of the recriminations do Corby any good, as she faces spending the rest of her child-bearing years in jail.

 

She now has eight days left to come up with fresh evidence to persuade the Indonesian High Court to reopen her case. "If I can find new evidence I will request the High Court judge instruct the District Court of Denpasar to reopen the case just to hear the new evidence," her Indonesian lawyer, Erwin Siregar, said on Friday after lodging notice to appeal.

 

But he says the only new evidence the High Court would accept is "the name of the person who put the marijuana in Schapelle's boogie board bag".

 

If someone did put the marijuana in Corby's boogie board bag, his conscience must surely be troubling him. An amnesty offered by the Australian Government might persuade that person to own up and provide the evidence required to exonerate Corby. It's worth a try.

[Old Hippie]

I doubt an offer of amnesty would work, drug smuggler's are usually very unscrupulous people. I also doubt the Bali officials would put any weight to this. I see this as Bali trying to stand up to Australia, and the world and show they will set an exampkle and not be told what to do. Frankly, I think the girl is innocent, just my gut feeling here. I worked for Eastern Airlines, where coke smuggling was rampent.

 

Frankly, the idea of not being able to lock suitcases these days really scares me. Anyone can removed and replace anything...things like exact weights, and CCTV would help, but are worthless if these airlines/airports/governments won't cooperate.