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.

FMI: www.schapelle.foreignprisoners.com, www.qantas.com.au, www.indonesia-tourism.com