Pubdate: Sun, 21 Jan 2001
Source: Sun-Herald (Australia)
Copyright: 2001 John Fairfax Holdings Ltd
Contact:  http://www.sunherald.com.au/
Author: Padraic Murphy and Andrew Rule

IS THE WORLD'S MOST WANTED WOMAN A PERTH HOUSEWIFE?

It is almost four years since Lisa Marie Smith vanished from Thailand. Her 
name appears on Most Wanted lists on three continents. Padraic Murphy and 
Andrew Rule report on the latest sensational twist in one of the drug 
world's most enduring mysteries.

International fugitive and alleged drug smuggler Lisa Marie Smith, once 
branded the most wanted woman in the world, is said to be living secretly 
in Australia as a newly married housewife.

The Melbourne-born woman is wanted for extradition to Thailand by the 
international crime-fighting agency Interpol after she skipped bail on 
drugs charges and fled the country.

Smith - reportedly the first Australian drugs prisoner to be granted bail 
in Thailand - was last seen on the playgrounds of Europe, including Greece.

But she is said to have slipped unnoticed into Australia - despite being on 
the "red alert" list held by immigration and police authorities around the 
world.

According to a friend and confidant, she has told him she has married an 
Englishman. And a short, signed letter he received suggests she may already 
have started a family.

Federal police and Interpol have confirmed Smith is wanted, but said the 
alert system should have detected her if she had tried to enter Australia 
under her own name.

The belief she entered the country just before Christmas is based on a 
claim by a Victorian confidant of Smith's who says he received a letter 
from her at her safe haven in Western Australia. He also says he spoke to 
her by phone.

Smith wrote to the man - who wants to be known only by his first name, 
Grant - in March and June, 1996, when she was in jail in Thailand.

Grant had earlier written to Smith offering advice on how he left Thailand 
after spending months in jail on a firearms charge in 1987. He advised 
Smith which Bangkok solicitors to trust.

In letters to Grant, Smith wrote "... hopefully in the not too distant 
future, I'll be visiting Australia".

Smith, who holds Australian and British passports, was 20 when she was 
arrested on February 13, 1996, at Bangkok Airport on charges of trying to 
smuggle 4kg of cannabis and 565 amphetamine tablets out of Thailand. Facing 
20 years in the notorious Klong Prem jail, known as the "Bangkok Hilton", 
Smith fled justice in August 1996 after her father, Terry Smith, then Hong 
Kong-based chief executive in Asia for the AXA China insurance company, 
paid $75,000 bail.

The most recent letter from Smith to Grant, a typewritten paragraph, says: 
"So pleased to be able to write to you again, many things have happened 
since I last wrote you and it's so good to be home and maybe a family.

"Thanks for all your help, never has such good advice come at the right time.

"I'm here in the West. It was just a hop, skip and a jump. I hope you are 
well ... we all must get together some day soon." Smith signs the letter 
"love Lisa".

A handwriting expert who examined the signatures could not make a judgment 
one way or the other.

Grant says Smith told him she had married an Englishman and had entered the 
country on her own passport, or possibly on a passport in her new married name.

He claims the letter was sent to his old address in Melbourne a few weeks 
before Christmas and forwarded to him in country Victoria. It was followed 
by a telephone call, he says, in which Smith referred to living "out west". 
This letter was postmarked at an inner Perth suburb, he says.

Dick Moses, head of the Australian Federal Police's international 
operations, said the letter was "interesting, but not conclusive".

He appealed to any member of the public harbouring Smith to come forward.

"The Australian Federal Police welcome any information that may assist us 
in locating her whereabouts," Moses said.

It was unlikely Smith, who remained on Interpol's 10 most wanted list, 
would have entered the country under her own name and passport. "She has a 
red flag attached to her, which means anybody travelling using her 
passports would have been picked up by immigration officials," Moses said.

Moses said he would contact Thai authorities to tell them of the letter.

"Basically we will only arrest her if there's a specific request from our 
counterparts in Thailand."

Asked if she would be deported to Thailand - a country where she faces the 
death sentence or a lengthy jail term, Moses said: "That's a matter for the 
Federal Government".

Meanwhile, Thai police have stepped up their international search and 
pledged this week they would not give up until Smith was extradited and 
faced trial in Thailand.

Smith's disappearance from Thailand led to claims others had bought her 
freedom.

Thai police foreign affairs department commander Watcharapol Prasarnrajkit 
said at the time that an international search for the then 20-year-old 
would be conducted and that "the reputation of Thailand is at stake".

The granting of bail under the circumstances was seen as virtually 
unprecedented in a country where accused prisoners are normally kept in 
chains in appalling prison conditions and led to a serious rift between 
police and justice officials, amid allegations that the course of justice 
in the Smith case had been perverted.

There are also concerns that the Smith case has put other foreigners in 
danger of harsher sentences when arrested in Thailand and that Australia 
might be reluctant to extradite in future.

Three Australians, Lyle Doniger, Jane Dawson and Deborah Spinner, regarded 
by the AFP as small-time couriers in an operation organised by others, were 
each sentenced in 1997 to 50 years' jail after pleading guilty to 
attempting to carry 115 grams of heroin from Bangkok to Sydney.

An AFP officer involved in the investigation was reported to have said 
there was "complete shock" at the "draconian sentence" and it might affect 
how AFP officers liaised with Thai police in future operations.

"The sentence is totally inconsistent for what was a relatively small 
amount of heroin," the officer told The Sun-Herald. "It was expected, going 
on previous cases, that the three would be sentenced to 12 to 15 years and 
that they would possibly serve six or eight.

"The Thais were extremely embarrassed and angry that Lisa Marie Smith had 
absconded and I believe that these three are paying the price for her escape."
- ---
MAP posted-by: GD