Australians still hold out hope for Bali drug smuggler
Australians still hold out hope for Bali drug smuggler
Agencies, Sydney/Canberra
An expert witness in the trial in Indonesia of Australian Schapelle Corby said on Saturday that a successful appeal against her 20-year sentence for attempting to smuggle 4.1 kilograms of marijuana into Bali was not out of the question.
Queensland criminologist Professor Paul Wilson also condemned fellow Australians who blamed 27-year-old Corby's Indonesian lawyers for the guilty verdict announced on Friday.
"It will be extremely difficult but not impossible to win an appeal," Wilson told Australia's AAP news agency. He testified at Corby's trial in Denpasar that the divorcee did not fit the profile of a drug courier.
"There will be different judges and different judges may make different assessments of all evidence," Wilson added.
He said the hope for Corby was the prosecution's lack of forensic evidence tying her to drugs found in her luggage last October. Conflicting accounts of the drug seizure could throw the prosecution's case into doubt, he said.
Wilson, who lives in Corby's Gold Coast hometown, deplored criticism of Corby's defense team.
"I am enormously disappointed with the public criticism of the defense team," Wilson said. "It's based on a lot of misunderstandings of what was happening. What isn't realized is that the odds were almost impossible. As the judge pointed out, he had 500 trials and not one had he acquitted."
Similarly, Australian newspapers on Saturday defended the integrity of the Indonesian justice system but said it had failed to show mercy to Corby.
"Nation's fury" Sydney's Daily Telegraph declared on its front page.
It said, "Judges show Corby no mercy" while the Sydney Morning Herald focused on the prosecutors' determination to appeal for a heavier sentence.
The Herald's website and Channel Nine's ninemsn portal both reported record numbers of hits as Australians logged on to find out the verdict of the case that has transfixed the country for more than six months.
The Herald said the Corby trial had stopped the nation, with workers crowding around office television sets to watch the court's verdict on the charges against the 27-year-old beauty therapist.
The Telegraph said it had been inundated with e-mails expressing fury and frustration at the sentence. "This is outrageous. I will never visit Bali. Their justice system is a joke," wrote Jesse from Sydney.
Sharni Potter told the newspaper: "I just keep thinking this could have been me or someone close to me." But there was also support for the Indonesian judges. "Thank the Lord, justice has prevailed," John Sullivan wrote. "If those drugs had made it into Bali, it would have been our kids getting poisoned. One more drug trafficker off the streets."
Newspaper editorials said Australians had no choice but to accept the verdict.
Meanwhile, Indonesian justice minister Hamid Awaluddin will meet the legal team of Corby, her Australian lawyer said on Saturday in Canberra, as the team considered pursuing political as well as legal ways to free her.
Lawyer Robin Tampoe, of Corby's hometown of Gold Coast in Queensland state, said Hamid had agreed to speak to Corby's Indonesian legal team to discuss her options. He did not say when the meeting would take place.
"We'll pursue every conceivable avenue that we can," Tampoe told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio when asked if he wanted to pursue political negotiations as well as a judicial appeal. "Anything we can possibly do to get Schapelle Corby home, we'll leave no stone unturned," he said. "Everything is an option."
Her lawyers have suggested it may have been corrupt airport baggage handlers who had intended to transport the marijuana within Australia, but failed to retrieve it before Corby's luggage was transferred to an international flight in Sydney.
However, Indonesian prosecutors plan to appeal the 20-year prison sentence given to the Australian woman, saying the punishment is too lenient.
The prosecutors, who demanded a life sentence, were not satisfied with the 20-year sentence and will appeal to the higher court, Attorney General's Office spokesman R.J. Soehandoyo was quoted as saying by Antara on Saturday.