Aussie family to appeal

ANGRY relatives yesterday screamed at judges who jailed an Australian woman for 20 years for smuggling cannabis to the holiday island of Bali.

Beautician Schapelle Corby, 27, wept as the sentence was announced.

She mouthed: 'Just relax, it's OK' and hugged her tearful parents before being led away by police.

But her mother Rosleigh Rose yelled out, 'Liar, liar' at the presiding judges.

Other Corby supporters shouted: 'We are going to get you home. We love you.'

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An Australian tourist was sentenced to 20 years in jail yesterday for attempting to smuggle more than 4kg (9lb) of marijuana into the Indonesian holiday island of Bali, concluding a trial that has gripped her country.

Schapelle Corby, 27, a trainee beautician from Brisbane, was also fined 100m rupiah (#5,800), although the end of the verdict was barely heard as the sweltering courtroom, crowded with family, friends, holidaymakers and an army of Australian journalists, descended into pandemonium.

Loud boos drowned out the cheers of a few anti-drug campaigners. Corby's mother, Rosleigh, stood up and shouted at the three judges: "Liar, liar. Honey, we are going to take you home."

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SCHAPELLE Corby has been found guilty of importing drugs into Indonesia and sentenced to 20 years prison.

Scenes of pandemonium broke out in the courtroom after the sentence with Corby's family shouting "Schapelle is innocent".

Corby then appeared to turn to her mother and mouth the words: "It's okay mum".

Judges also fined Corby 100 million rupiah ($A13,870).

The judges said they accepted the evidence of police and customs officials that Corby admitted to owning the drugs, despite her denials.

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It would indeed be very shameful if the court in Bali bows to the Australian government and frees the girl, Schapelle Corby, who is convicted of smuggling 4.1 kilograms of marijuana. (The verdict is scheduled to be handed down later this month -- Ed.) If this happened in Malaysia, this girl would be prosecuted and would get the death sentence as soon as possible.

We are fed up with the Australian government who has accused the Indonesian government of doing little in combating terrorists. Now the time has come for us to combat marijuana terrorists from Australia when they speak unfairly about our courts.

They threatened our embassy in Canberra, they asked the court to free the girl accused, and so on and so on. It is very undemocratic act done by Australian government as though they have no shame at all.

Iing Lukman, Serdang, Malaysia

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Perhaps the most compelling reason so many Australians believe Schapelle Corby is innocent is the "coals to Newcastle" argument: why would anyone smuggle marijuana to Bali when everyone knows it's so easy to get there?

While drugs might seem freely available on the streets, the foreigners who live in Bali, including those serving time in Kerobokan jail, say that buying them is a very risky business because you never know if the seller is an undercover police officer or a police informer.

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SCHAPELLE Corby will remain in a Bali jail possibly for months even if three Indonesian judges acquit her on Friday.

Chief prosecutor Ida Bagus Wiswantanu has told The Australian he intends to launch an appeal if the 27-year-old Gold Coast woman were found guilty of drug smuggling but sentenced to anything less than life in prison, the sentence he has recommended.

"What is suitable is a life sentence," he said. "If it is less than that, it will not fit our sense of what is just, so we will appeal."

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THE judge in charge of deciding Schapelle Corby's fate yesterday went to church and prayed for guidance on Friday's verdict.

Judge Linton Sirait, a Christian, has gone to his home town in Sumatra for a few days to visit his family before one of the biggest days of his career.

Judge Sirait told the Herald Sun from Medan he attended church and his prayers included seeking divine blessing for the court's decision.

"I prayed to the God for guidance in the Corby judgment. But not only that, of course, I prayed for many things and I prayed that the case runs smoothly," he said.

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A Parade of Aussies Is Beating a Path to Schapelle Corby's Prison Door, Reports Cindy Wockner From Denpasar, Bali

SOME are genuinely concerned for Schapelle Corby's plight. Others just want to get close to the celebrity she has become.

Australians arrive in their dozens. As if in some ritual, most bear plastic shopping bags full of the essentials of life - soap, toothpaste, shampoo, chips, lollies and drinks - and wait in the visiting queue outside the shabby-looking brown wooden prison doors.

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The odds are stacked against her and it's not just because of Indonesian law, writes Matthew Moore in Jakarta.

Schapelle Corby's prosecutor is not used to losing, especially in drugs trials. Of the more than 200 narcotics cases he has handled, Ida Bagus Wiswantanu has got 90 per cent of the sentences he has asked for. Those cases where the judge has wound back his requests are the small ones, he says, "usually less than 100 grams".

For Corby, who was caught last October with 4.1 kilograms of marijuana, a drug Indonesia classes as a narcotic, the odds are high. Mr Wiswantanu wants her jailed for life, nothing less. If she gets 15 years, he will appeal immediately. If she gets 20, he will still probably appeal.

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A letter sent by the Howard Government to prosecutors in the Schapelle Corby case, detailing accusations of drug smuggling against Australian baggage handlers, will have no bearing on the verdict after the chief judge in the case dismissed it as irrelevant.

The letter has also annoyed the prosecutors and Corby's Indonesian lawyers, who see it as too little too late.

Chief prosecutor Ida Bagus Wiswantanu said the letter, revealed by Prime Minister John Howard yesterday, had no legal standing and should be ignored.

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When I was at school and we had an enemy who had done us wrong, we usually "settled the score" with a fist fight. It looks like the drug-war cheerleaders of Indonesia have given today's citizens of Indonesia a much easier way to settle the score.

All they need to do is to plant some marijuana or some other illegal drug on their enemy, call the police or a government agency with an anonymous tip-off and your government will do the rest.

Of course, I must be the first and only person to think of this.

Mesa, AZ, U. S.

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The arrests of nine Australians accused of heroin trafficking in Bali will not hurt the trial of compatriate Schapelle Corby, the Indonesian judge overseeing her case says.

Chief Judge Linton Siriat said he and his fellow two judges would consider the Corby case on its merits, and would not be influenced by the other arrests.

He also told the Seven network tonight he did not expect prosecutors to seek the death penalty for the 27-year-old Gold Coast former beauty student when her trial resumes tomorrow.

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CIVIL libertarian groups in Australia have demanded the federal government clarify whether it is "exporting the death penalty to other countries" after Australian Federal Police (AFP) tipped off Indonesian authorities about the alleged trafficking ring.

"What has to be answered by the federal Justice Minister Chris Ellison is why were these people the subject of an arrest in Indonesia where it's already been said quite categorically that if found guilty, no question, they will be executed," Australian Council for Civil Liberties president Terry O'Gorman said.

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JAKARTA: The City Council asked the city administration to strengthen law enforcement against drug dealers and users, the city's official news portal Beritajakarta.com reported on Friday.

Councillor Siti Sofiah of Commission E on people's welfare said that the death penalty should be seen as an option to deal with offenders and urged the officials to draft a bylaw on psychotropic substances.

"Until now, the executives have not taken any significant actions to deal with drug users and dealers," she said.

Her colleague Lili Solichah added that the City Narcotics Agency must be able to develop an action plan to monitor and eradicate drug dealings within the city.

The city administration is now in the process of developing a local regulation on the matter.

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Schapelle Corby's Indonesian lawyer is pessimistic about her client's chances of being acquitted on drug-smuggling charges, saying the evidence heard at her trial might not be hard enough to clear the Gold Coast woman.

"She has big hopes (of being released) but I believe all of the evidence we have brought to the court could only get a slighter punishment for her," Lely Sri Rahayu Lubis said.

"In the prosecutor's mind the drugs were in her bag. She admitted it (the bag) was hers and the claim tag was under her name, so it is clear (for the prosecutors that) she committed the crime.

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An extraordinary drama is gripping Australia as a woman fights for her life in a Balinese court against a backdrop of conflicting emotions and suspicions, drug syndicates, diplomatic relations and even natural disaster.

Schapelle Corby, a 27-year-old student of beauty therapy, faces charges of drug trafficking that, if proven, could put her in front of a firing squad. In jail since October last year, Corby is now awaiting a verdict after her defence wrapped up its case in sensational style this week.

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KEROBOKAN, Bali - Accused drug smuggler Schapelle Corby was left shocked and upset by evidence that she was the innocent victim of an Australian crime gang, a key supporter said today.

Lawyers for the former Gold Coast beauty student on trial in Bali have been heartened by the evidence of Victorian remand prisoner John Ford, and by news Australian police are investigating an alleged drug ring in Australian airports.

Ford told Denpasar District Court yesterday that he overheard two fellow prisoners laughing about how a crime boss' shipment of marijuana had gone missing between Brisbane and Sydney last year.

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Schapelle Corby sent a heartfelt message to her fellow Australians from her Bali prison cell yesterday.

"I want the Australian public to keep believing in me because I have done nothing wrong and I want to thank the Australian public for their support because, without their support, I would be dead already," she said.

After her most traumatic day yet in court yesterday, the 27-year-old was visited in jail by family, friends and her legal team, who are concerned for her emotional wellbeing as the case draws to a close.

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It always struck me as strange that the drug laws in South East Asia are so draconian when measured against the paltry punishments for other crimes that appear to the casual observer to be far more destructive.

To impose the death penalty for smuggling marijuana, a plant which is readily grown throughout South East Asia, seems a grossly misplaced priority. Other far more pernicious activities, such as human trafficking, forced prostitution, illegal logging, poaching of endangered species, gross violations of human rights, and the religious fanaticism that manifests itself in horrific acts of terrorism, seem to earn little more than a slap on the wrist.

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John Patrick Ford -- the man with the best chance of helping Schapelle Corby beat deadly drug smuggling charges -- arrived in Bali yesterday.

In handcuffs and under tight security, the 40-year-old was met by Bali's drug squad chief Lieutenant-Colonel Bam Bang Sugiarto and a team of six drug squad officers.

He was taken in a prison truck to the jail at Denpasar police headquarters, where he will be held until tomorrow before he takes the stand.

Ford -- on remand from a Victorian prison and facing charges of rape, aggravated burglary, threatening to kill, unlawful imprisonment and assault -- showed no emotion as he was escorted into prison.

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