Downer says RI presidential pardon best hope for Corby

Downer says RI presidential pardon best hope for Corby

Agence France-Presse, Sydney

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer on Sunday advised a young Australian woman sentenced to 20 years in an Indonesian jail for smuggling marijuana to seek a pardon from Indonesia's president.

Downer also fended off criticism that this government was giving special treatment to Schapelle Corby, whose conviction and sentencing in Bali has led to a massive outpouring of sympathy here with even the fiercely anti-drugs Prime Minister John Howard declaring: "I feel for the girl."

The foreign minister, who normally declines to comment on the specifics of cases before the courts, said a request for a pardon from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was the 27-year-old beauty therapist's best hope of having her sentence reduced.

"In this case, as in any case in Indonesia, it is possible to appeal successfully for a presidential pardon and my guess is that that is likely to be, if the appeals are unsuccessful, the only way of reducing the sentence," Downer told Channel Seven.

With analysts accusing politicians of pandering to Australian public outrage over the Corby case, Downer denied Canberra was singling the convicted drug smuggler out for special treatment.

"We have to be traditionally Australian and egalitarian about it and make sure what we offer to Schapelle Corby is commensurate with what we offer to other people," he said.

"In her case, she's got a substantial amount of what we might call legal aid and Australians when they travel overseas are eligible to apply for that legal assistance."

Official figures show there are 155 Australians in foreign jails, two of them on death row, yet none of them have generated the public outcry or flurry of government activity prompted by the attractive young Queenslander's plight.

Immediately after Corby's sentence was handed down on Friday, Downer offered her defense team the use of two senior lawyers experienced in Indonesian law and said the government would consider committing extra funds to pay for an appeal.

Government officials will also travel to Jakarta on June 6 in an attempt to negotiate a one-off prisoner transfer deal that would allow Corby to serve at least some of her sentence in Australia.

Governor General Mike Jeffrey, the British monarchy's representative in Australia, on Sunday refused to rule out lending his support to a request for a pardon from Yudhoyono.

Both defense and prosecution lawyers told Australian newspapers that an court appeal by Corby could backfire and result in her being sentenced to death.

But Corby's defense team said it would pursue the appeal because a pardon request would imply she was guilty.

"The girl is not guilty," said defense adviser Vasu Rasiah told Australian Associated Press from Bali. "How can she ask for a pardon?"

The Sunday Telegraph newspaper said Canberra's ability to influence the case was limited because attempts at political interference would risk undermining Indonesia's efforts to clean up the corruption endemic in the justice system.

"For Australia to attempt to interfere in the Indonesian courts at a political level would be viewed as a blatant act of white colonialism," it said. "The court process in the Corby case has been relatively transparent, if somewhat chaotic."