Fri, May 27, 2005 page5

• Bali drug trial tests relations with Australia

  PUBLIC SYMPATHY The verdict will be handed down this week in the high-profile case of Schapelle Corby, an Australian charged with trafficking marijuana in Bali. Will all the international attention work in her favor, and what of others in a similar plight?

  • DPA
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  The new-found friendship between Australia and Indonesia goes on trial this week when a court in Bali gives its verdict in a drugs case that has gripped the nation.

  Commercial channels will cross live to Denpasar this afternoon to see if 27-year-old Schapelle Corby beats a charge that she tried to smuggle in 4kg of marijuana.

  "It's a hugely newsworthy story and lots and lots of people are very interested in it," Channel Seven boss Peter Meakin said of a decision to interrupt regular programming for the news break.

  Those keenly interested include Prime Minister John Howard, who has written to the court suggesting ever-so-obliquely that Corby might be the dupe of a sophisticated drug syndicate rather than the hapless small-time smuggler that others make her out to be.

  Howard is keenly aware that blanket media coverage has whipped up enormous public sympathy for the lachrymose Queenslander and support for her claims that the drugs were planted. But he has also spoken of the need for Australians to respect Indonesia's sovereignty and not imperil the good relationship he enjoys with Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the country's first democratically elected president. Relations with the giant neighbor, the best they have been in decades, are at risk from claims Australians can't expect a fair trial in Indonesia because its leaders are incompetent and its courts corrupt.

  Hobart travel agent Tony Foster has threatened to stop selling Bali packages if the shapely Corby, as expected, is sentenced to a lengthy spell in Denpasar's Korobokan jail.

  "If she is found guilty, I've just taken the stance, the personal stance, that I'm not going to sell Bali as a travel destination," he said.

  Corby's supporters, some of whom have posted death threats to Indonesian diplomats, have been egged on by loudmouth talkshow hosts.

  Condemnation of the neighbors has also come from Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe and other local celebrities.

  The bile has been remarkable. The three Indonesian judges presiding over the court were called "monkeys" by a popular Sydney radio presenter. And Ron Bakir, the businessman bankrolling Corby's defense, was forced into a retraction by Jakarta after claiming he had been asked for bribes in return for Corby's freedom.

  The controversy has even ensnared police chief Mick Keelty, who was traduced in the press for describing Corby's defense as "flimsy."

  Yet Keelty, the policeman whose forensic work helped put away the Bali bombers that took the lives of 202 people four years ago, is in very good company: legal experts say privately that the prima-facie case against Corby is rock solid and that a conviction would be unsurprising in Australia or in any other jurisdiction.

  According to Tim Lindsay, director of Melbourne University's Asian Law Center: "This case is not an unusual case. It's a standard case. Her defense team has been weak. It has not put a good case before the court. It's really nothing controversial."

  Professor Lindsay argues that while there is corruption and incompetence in the Indonesian legal system, this does not mean that corruption and incompetence has tainted Corby's trial.

  An opinion poll showed 93 per cent of Australians believe the innocence that Corby has protested since her arrest in October. But those with a deeper knowledge of the case are unconvinced.

  The drugs were found in surfing gear she was taking for her holiday in Bali. Yet her brother-in-law in Denpasar runs a surf shop, from which she could easily have borrowed. The drugs she says were stuffed in her boogie board bag weighed more than the bag she says she packed.

  Yet she seemingly failed to notice the increased size and weight of the bag when she hefted it off the arrivals hall carousel. The Corby case has highlighted a xenophobia that has disturbed some observers. There are support websites galore. There are "Free Schapelle" T-shirts and coffee mugs. Corby has been promised a lucrative book contract if she gets off.

  The government has pandered to the public clamor for something to be done. Justice Minister Chris Ellison has pledged to expedite a proposed prisoner-exchange deal with Jakarta and "look at an interim arrangement for Schapelle Corby."

  No minister had pledged to do anything special for the Vietnamese-born Australian given a death sentence in Singapore for a comparable drug offense. Howard did not write to the court in his favor. It was left to Derryn Hinch, a controversial radio talk show host, to state the obvious.

  "Corby has been getting all this attention because she is young, white, pretty and has big boobs," Hinch said. "I haven't seen any TV network devoting prime time to some scrawny, male Vietnamese-Australian on death row in Singapore."
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