Indonesian Conviction Nets 20 Years For Australian Tourist
There is one question
to which, by definition, only Schapelle Corby truly knows the
answer: did she know she had the drugs? That hasn't stopped almost
everyone who's aware of the South Pacific smuggling case from
forming an opinion, of course. In the 27-year-old's native
Australia, public opinion runs 90% in favor of her innocence. Only
one opinion counts, though -- that of the three Indonesian judges
who found Corby guilty Friday and sentenced her to 20 years in the
island nation's bleak prisons. She was also fined 100 million
Indonesian rupees -- which sounds dreadful, but, at about $10,500
US, is the least of her problems.
By Indonesian standards, the judges were lenient. They could
have sentenced Corby to the firing squad.
No one disputes that customs agents found over nine pounds of
marijuana in Corby's boogie-board bag when she stepped off a Qantas
flight at Ngurah Rai/Denpasar Airport (ICAO code WADD - IATA code
DPS) in Bali, a popular vacation destination for young Aussies,
last October. Since then, she's been confined in a Bali jail. The
dispute is: who put the drugs there, and for whom were they
intended? Nine pounds is a bit much for personal use, so the drugs
were most likely intended for resale -- but by whom?
The prosecution argued, essentially, that who Corby was carrying
the drugs for didn't matter. She had the drugs in her possession;
they're against the law; game, set, match: the government didn't
need to prove intent any further than to show the existence of the
drugs.
The defense argument was
that a ring of baggage handlers had put the drugs in the unwitting
Corby's luggage, and they provided some evidence that that might be
the case, including testimony from a convicted smuggler presently
in Australian prison, John Ford, and a Brisbane baggage handler,
Scott Speed. The defense also presented three witnesses who were
traveling with Corby and said that there were no drugs in her bag
when she packed it. Finally, Corby made a statement herself.
The judges accepted the prosecution argument. They dismissed the
defense bag-packing witnesses as biased, as two were friends and
the third was her brother James Kisina. Ford's evidence was
dismissed as hearsay and Speed's as unsupportive of Corby's
defense, according to The Age newspaper. As far as Corby's
statement is concerned, chief judge Linton Sirait didn't even have
it translated into his own language, Indonesian (he understands no
English). The judges then turned normal jursiprudence on its head
by requiring the defense to overcome a presumption of guilt.
At the same time, news reports in Australia indicate that Qantas
and Federal Police are investigating, oddly enough, a
baggage-handlers'
smuggling ring, although the ring in question seems to be a cocaine
ring. One Qantas baggage handler was suspended May 12th, and more
may be in the offing, but Qantas CEO Geoff Dixon issued a statement
explicitly denying any Qantas baggage-handler connection to the
Corby case.
Baggage-handler smuggling and theft rings are not unknown in the
United States; one operated by Northwest Airlines' baggage handlers
in Boston led to the still-unsolved murder of Susan Taraskiewicz in
1992, as well as dozens of indictments and convictions of Northwest
baggage handlers for theft and credit card fraud (using cards
stolen from luggage or mail traveling on Northwest). Taraskiewicz
is believed to have been murdered because the thieves feared she
was cooperating with a federal grand jury. At least one of the
thieves, who was connected with organized crime, was subsequently
murdered himself.
To those airline-operated theft and smuggling (and occasional
murder) rings we now can add TSA theft and smuggling rings, with
the added twist that the TSA often refuses to prosecute its own
criminals, claiming that it would reveal "security secrets."
And now we face the unhealthy prospect of even-lower-paid, more
loosely-supervised "outsourced" baggage handlers, which is only
going to compound the problem.
In Australia, Corby is
widely believed to have been an innocent victim of such a smuggling
ring. There, public reaction to the Corby conviction is strong
enough to threaten relations with Indonesia. Prime Minister John
Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer have been trying to
douse the public flames, and the government has promised to try to
negotiate an agreement that would see Corby serve out her sentence
in Australia, at least, instead of in Indonesia. (Many nations have
such bilateral agreements, allowing international convicts, on
humanitarian grounds, at least to serve their sentences in
the prisons of their home country).
The Bali tourist business, already hard hit by terrorism and
tsunami, and heavily dependent on Australian dollars, may be the
next victim.
According to the Associated Press, Australian talk shows have been
deluged with angry callers calling for a Bali boycott, some of them
expressing regret at donating to Indonesian tsunami relief.
But the judges don't seem to have any doubts. "Is there justice
in Indonesia? Yes, there is," they wrote in their decision. The
international press, who were shaken down for hundreds of thousands
of dollars in press pass "fees" by corrupt Indonesian courthouse
staff, is mostly of the opposite opinion. And in the final
analysis, the only person who knows for sure if Schapelle Corby was
carrying those drugs deliberately sits in ramshackle Kerobokan
prison, a medieval dungeon that makes Monte Cristo look like, well,
a vacation in Bali.