Corby maintains innocence on final day of trial
Corby maintains innocence on final day of trial
Wahjoe Boediwardhana, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar
With her eyes glistening with tears, Australian drug-accused
Schapelle L. Corby maintained her defense plea that she was the
victim of drug smugglers on the final day of her trial at the
Denpasar District Court on Thursday.
In an emotional last-ditch appeal to the panel of judges, she
told the court she believed she was the unwitting victim of a
drug syndicate, which had attempted to use her body-board bag to
traffic the 4.1 kilograms of cannabis that Bali customs offices
found in her possession last year.
Wearing a long-sleeved shirt and black pants, the 27-year-old
defendant has said since the beginning of her trial that she is
innocent.
"I cannot admit a crime that I did not commit. My life at the
moment is in your hands," she told the judges, presided over by
Chief Justice Linton Sirait.
Corby said she had not known the drug was inside her body-
board bag when she had entered Denpasar's Ngurah Rai Airport. She
insisted she had never put the drug into the bag.
A tearful Corby said the prosecutors and police had never
taken the opportunity to check whether her fingerprints were
either on the outer or inner plastic bags the drug was packed in.
The defendant also maintained she had no connection with drug
syndicates. She said that she had already been in a Bali jail for
seven months and had suffered enough.
"Please declare me innocent and send me home," she said.
Corby's lawyer, Erwin Siregar, criticized the police and
prosecutors for ignoring a crucial investigation procedure.
Erwin said police and prosecutors should have searched for
fingerprints on Corby's baggage and on the drug package. He had
demanded police and prosecutors to dust down the drug bags but
they had ignored him, he said.
The former beauty student was arrested in October last year
when arriving at the airport from Sydney after customs officers
discovered 4.1 kilograms of marijuana in her luggage.
She was later charged with trying to smuggle the drug into
Bali, a crime that carries a maximum death sentence. Prosecutors
earlier demanded Corby be sentenced to life for her crime.
The court has been adjourned for two weeks to allow judges
prepare for their final verdict.