nytraveler

An Australian woman has just been convicted of smuggling marijuana into Bali - and been sentenced to 20 years in jail. At the recommendation of the prosecution she was not sentenced to death.

Just a gentle reminder that laws are different everywhere - even plaes that appear to be paradise - and if you break them there is little your embassay can do to help you.

adoptionisfab

This story is so scary! How do you prevent this from happening?

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapc...eal/index.html

Robespierre

I'll tell you how to prevent this from happening:

<font color="blue"><b>STAY AWAY FROM INDONESIA</b></font>

Evidently they don't subscribe to such civilized concepts as &quot;rules of evidence&quot; or &quot;guilt beyond reasonable doubt.&quot;

Cripes. What a bunch of barbarians.

(Can I have my tsunami relief money returned?)

Mary_Fran

It is a horrifying story. Would luggage locks have prevented this? I have never used them, as I never carry anything of significant value in my luggage. However, it had not occurred to me that unlocked luggage could result in me being an unwitting mule for some drug smuggler.

I'm going to be much more careful in the future to consult the state department's travel warning's website before buying my tickets to that country.

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_p...s/cis_1765.htm

The Indonesia travel warnings on that site would certainly have deterred me from traveling to that country...

MissPrism

This story is even more frightening

A British woman faced a four year prison sentence in Dubai after she was found to have traces of codeine and Temazepam in her urine when she was detained at the airport.
Her doctor in the UK had actually prescribed the medicine for back pain.
Codeine is illegal in the UAE, but how many of us would know that?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/st...479381,00.html
or http://tinyurl.com/9xlqw

cruiseluv

Another helpful tip: do not attempt to smuggle marijuana

bennyb

The Indonesian justice system is based upon &quot;innocent until proven guilty.&quot; And I don't recall many Australians objecting when the courts there tried the Bali bombing suspects, found them all guilty, and sentenced them to death. If the justice system is so bad there, those defendants should be set free, too - or at least given a new trial, right?

That's not to say the Australian woman was guilty - only she knows the real truth. Maybe she was, and maybe she wasn't. And if she was really innocent, then the court made a big mistake.

But punishing the tsunami victims because you don't like the court's verdict is ridiculous. I don't agree with every legal decision my courts make, and I would hate for some uninformed foreigner to judge me personally because of it. (So is it my fault that the US supreme court legalizes abortion, which some foreigner may consider abhorrent?).

Some countries are much stricter on drug offenses than others. Knowing that, chose to visit the country, or don't. Withholding aid to victims of a natural disaster is just cruel.

Oh - and the Indonesians do not seem like the barbarians in this story - that title goes to the Australian baggage handlers and air traffic system that allowed this to happen (if one is to believe the defendant). We should actually be boycotting Australia if we don't want illegal drugs to suddenly show up in our luggage (I know I don't).

Robespierre

But the cnn story doesn't suggest that one scintilla of proof was presented linking the drugs to the defendant. If the Indonesian judicial system is truly based on the presumption of innocence, then their standard of proof leaves a lot to be desired.

By all means, if the Indonesian authorities can show proof positive that Australian baggage handlers attempted to smuggle contraband into Indonesia (I don't really know what the air traffic system has to do with anything), then they should be prosecuted.

I recall the Bali bombing suspects were caught surrounded with solid forensic evidence, not with drugs that might have been planted. If they <i>were</i> railroaded, as this poor creature appears to have been, then <u>yes</u>, of course they should be re-tried.

Spygirl

Robespierre-what a silly comment. YOU did not look at the evidence, nor did CNN-the court did, and they found her guilty. I would say that the evidence must have been VERY convincing, given all the publicity surrounding the trial and sentencing-you don't want to mess up on the evidentiary aspects of a case when the whole world is watching. She now has an appeal, if the court's procedure violated human rights, or Indonesian law in some way, trust me, she'll have some big-time Aussie lawyers helping her out-the best legal advice the media spotlight can buy. But I seriously doubt that they'll find much of anything that will merit reversal in this case.

And if one knows anything at all about drug cases, you would know that the defendant's defense is a standard one for someone in her situation-if she HADN'T put the blame on someone allegedly &quot;planting&quot; the hash in her suitcase, THEN I would have been surprised. Jeez! EVERY drug defendant says that-go spend some time in any big city courthouse and you'll soon see what I mean!

Like so many we have read about who have come before her,(think Midnight Express, among many other real-event movies of this genre) Ms. Corby, in her arrogance and foolishness of youth, had to find out the hard way, the very hard way, that she could not beat the system and flaunt another countries' drug laws. To try and do so is a recipe for disaster.

Not only that, but if Ms. Corby were found guilty of hash smuggling in this country, she would be facing a minimum of 10 years (no plea downward) for her crime, in addition to possibly facing both federal AND state charges, depending on who busted her first and where. So it ain't just in the so-called &quot;third world&quot; where a defendant caught smuggling hash/mj into a country is going to face hard time. Not by a long shot.

But in any event, they'll probably work out an agreement at some point between the two countries where she will eventually end up back in Australia &quot;serving her time.&quot; This last option of course, is not available to just anyone caught drug smuggling, only to those whose cases manage to get the appropriate publicity and attention of foreign governments and the media. Would that all defendants in similar circumstances to Ms. Corby be so lucky.

Yawn_boring

that's the world these days. smuggle some harmless pot, 20 years; become a terrorist and blow people up, slap on the hand.

Neil_Oz

The Australian print media is dominated by Rupert Murdoch, which might give you a clue as to the rabid sensationalism surrounding Ms Corby's case here. She's been portrayed as a latter-day martyr to drug lords, corrupt baggage handlers and dodgy Indonesian legal practice, which as you can imagine hasn't helped her cause with the Indonesians.

In fact the &quot;innocent until proven guilty&quot; rule doesn't seem to prevail in such cases - once the prosecution had made a prima facie case against her, it was up to her defence team to prove innocence. 4 kg of weed was found in her baggage, and while it may seem that bringing the stuff into Bali is akin to bringing coals to Newcastle (needless to say, drug trafficking usually works in the other direction), it seems that tourists there prefer to buy dope from other westerners to avoid the risk of police entrapment.

I emphatically do not want my donations to the tsunami victims back. At the same time, the treatment of Ms Corby for this essentially victimless crime does contrast starkly with the relative leniency shown to the Bali bombers, who are highly unlikely to be executed and will probably serve less time than she will. (Note that the Indonesian prosecutors, not satisfied with 20 years in a stinking rat-hole, plan to appeal in the hope of getting a life sentence for her.)

More to the point - in contrast with incoming screening procedures at Sydney and other airports, it seems that X-rays and sniffer dogs get nowhere near outbound baggage. Whatever the facts of this particular case, many people have been left understandable worried about the potential for interference with their bags.

Robespierre

&quot;Robespierre-what a silly comment.&quot;

What? That the cnn story didn't mention the case against her? I stand by that assertion.

&quot;The panel of three judges <b>dismissed key evidence</b> prepared by her defense team, including that of Australia prisoner John Ford who backed Corby's claim that she was an unwitting 'drug mule.'

The judges found Corby's defense team <b>could not prove</b> if there was another person responsible for the drugs.&quot;

Sure sounds like <i>guilty until proven innocent</i> to me. If my comment is &quot;silly,&quot; I wonder what yours is.

Robespierre

<i>p.s.</i> If I were contemplating smuggling 10 pounds of contraband into a country where the penalty for such an act was death, I think I would figure out a better way to secrete it than zipping it into my boogie board bag.

This one doesn't pass the sniff test.

Justin_Otago

Just an aside... the judge in this case is proud to have stood in over 500 similar cases of alleged drug smuggling, non of which he decided were innocent...

He also alleges very poor understanding of the english language... yet during her impassioned plea of innocence, he was reading a book with an english title which alludes me now, but was something like, life in prison, held up for her to see.

Dont know how much is true, but was reported in several newspapers and tv news shows in aus.

degas

robes, I see you are up to your old &quot;off with thier heads&quot; tricks.

WillTravel

This is the best argument ever for only taking carry-on luggage.

Not that I mean to be flippant. It seems most likely to me that she did not pack pot into her boogie bag, but that it got in there during the course of baggage handling in Australia.

Yawn_boring

None of us have first hand knowledge of the evidence (at least I haven't heard anything like that), yet the allegations that AUS bag handlers would plant this is even further beyond belief than LOST.

cruiseluv

What do the bag handlers had to gain from planting the dope in her bag?

nytraveler

Having some (little) familiarity with the judicial system in such cases in NYC - those that are not plead out - the invariable defense of the posessor of the drugs is: they aren;t mine - someone else put then there.

I have even seen kids being arrested (watched the whole thing right in front of my supermarket) admit the drugs were in the pants they were wearing but &quot;they're not my pants&quot;.

I have not seen any of the evidence in this case so don;t really have an informed point of view. But the idea of using unknowing drug mules is ludicrous - recovery of the drugs would simply be too difficult - and being turned in too likely. (Although some people are talked into it by &quot;friends&quot; who either convince them it is harmless - or it isn;t drugs.)

And this is not a case of proving oneself innocent - there is substantial circumstantial evidence against the woman (the stuff was in her luggage) and simply asserting it's not hers (without substaniating it in some way is the &quot;Martian defense&quot; - it doesn't meet the standard of reasonable doubt.) You don;t have to accept any alternate theory of the crime (the Martians did it) but only a reasonable one - supported by some sort of evidence or obvious life experience. Otherwise no one would ever be convicted of any crime without a whole host of eyewitnesses.

If everything she said was true - then her attorneys and the australian authorities should have developed some evidence at their end to support it. (And if this were really happending wouldn;t the Oz cops be all over the airports looking for this - and using the info she gave them to find the gang in question.)

My guess is that this young woman was both greedy and gullible - but as I said without having all the info how can we ever tell.

The point - is that you are subject to the laws and judicial system of wherever you go - so you need to be both smart - and careful.

WillTravel

The contention is that baggage handlers in Sydney and Brisbane had a thriving intercity dope-smuggling operation where they would put dope in unsuspecting people's bags, and then remove them before the people picked them up. But something went wrong.

If she had been caught trying to smuggle marijuana *out* of Bali, she would most likely be guilty. But the pot is worth far less on the street in Bali than it is in Oz, which makes the mathematics improbable.