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.