Posted on 05/30/2005 5:27:50 PM PDT by Valin
Australia's Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, says a draft prisoner exchange accord has been drawn up and presented to Indonesia.
On Friday, an Indonesian court found Australian woman Schappelle Corby guilty of smuggling more than four-kilograms of marijuana into Bali last year, sentencing her to 20-years in jail.
It's a case that's generated intense media and public interest in Australia.
Mr Downer has told the American television network CNN that a team will be travelling to Indonesia soon to discuss a possible prisoner exchange deal
"We've sent a draft text to the Indonesians which covers all prisoners, it's not specific to any one particular prisoner, and we'll obvioulsy be talking about that with them at the officials' level meeting next week."
The Age
http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Prison-transfer-deal-no-given-Indonesia/2005/05/31/1117305587565.html
Prison transfer deal no given: Indonesia
May 31, 2005 - 6:59AM
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A prisoner transfer agreement between Australia and Indonesia is no fait accompli, a senior Indonesian official says.
Australia will send a team of negotiators to Indonesia next week to thrash out a deal which could allow Schapelle Corby to serve part of her sentence on home soil.
The Gold Coast woman has decided to appeal a 20-year jail term for drug smuggling handed down by a Bali court last week.
If an appeal is unsuccessful, her supporters are pinning their hopes on the transfer deal to bring her home.
But Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa says such an arrangement is no certainty and nor is a one-off deal to bring Corby home.
"I must emphasise that agreement ... would be unprecedented from our perspective if we were to have one because we don't have a transfer of sentence agreement with any country whatsoever," he told ABC radio.
"And even if we were to have one, and that's a big if, even if we were to have one that would be an instrument in general in application and not specifically designed to any one particular legal case by any one particular individual."
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AdvertisementMr Natalegawa said the Indonesian government had not received a request from the Australians for a one-off interim deal to bring Corby home if the general negotiations became bogged down.
"If asked ... (our response) would be something along the lines (that) we would rather explore a generic, general type of agreement, rather than something tailor made for one particular case, especially a case in that is still very much in the legal processes now," he said.
"It would be prejudging the appeals process."
He could not give a time frame to negotiate a "generic" deal but admitted it would probably take longer than Australians wanted.
"It's probably going to be longer than most options that are coming out of Australia," Mr Natalegawa said.
Mr Natalegawa also described calls by some Australians to boycott Bali or take back foreign aid as alien and not advisable given recent close relations between the two countries.
"It will be totally alien, totally in contrast to the fact that the two governments' relations has been on a better footing, on a positive note and also the two people's relationship has been extremely close post-Bali, post-tsunami," he said.
"With the greatest respect and with the greatest sympathy to the feelings of Australians to Miss Corby's case, using the case to drive a wedge between the two peoples and the two governments is really not advisable."
How about if Bali lets her go... and in exchange... Australia doesn't bomb them back to the stone age.
Only an idiot would visit a Muslim country.
Bali isn't a muslim country.
Perhaps only an idiot would not know that Bali is less than 5% Muslim.
Correction, it is part of Indonesia, which is a Muslim country. It happens to be a Hindu island within an Islamic country however... hence my confusion. Sorry about that.
I live in Bali several months of the year, and own a home there. I must tell you that I heartily approve of strict enforcement of drug laws, especially in Bali.
When someone is caught with 9 pounds of marijuana, it is clearly a quantity intended for sale, and harsh penalites are appropriate.
If the local authorities were to take the "look the other way" approach to drug crime so common in some western jurisdictions, Bali's drug problem would balloon out of control in six months, given the number of young, adventurous, footloose westerners here.
My advice to you and others of your mentality is to find some drug smugglers in your own area to break out of jail.
Only an idiot would visit a Muslim country...and smuggle drugs.
Sorry no sympathy for her.
Not necessary. All Oz needs to do is embargo Indonesia in general and Bali specifically.
Tourism is almost the entirety of Bali's economy, and Ozzies are the single largest group of Bali tourists. Without their dollars, Bali's economy will collapse. You can bet the large resort corporations will be exerting some major pressure on the Indonesian courts before they allow that to happen.
In the meantime, do your own personal boycott. Don't travel to, do business in, or buy products from Indonesia. And make sure you publicise the fact as often as possible.
I was thinking the same thing. What sane Australian would trust the airport baggage handlers (if you make the argument that past criminal activity amongst the handlers makes this woman's guilt suspicious) or spend their money in Bali now?
If Australians were vocal about not spending money in Bali, I could see a prisoner exchange in the near future.
It's amazing to me to see how worked up otherwise sensible people can become over a convicted drug smuggler.
Tourism is almost the entirety of Bali's economy, and Ozzies are the single largest group of Bali tourists. Without their dollars, Bali's economy will collapse. You can bet the large resort corporations will be exerting some major pressure on the Indonesian courts before they allow that to happen.
Here you seem to be seriously arguing that the hotel industry should pressure the Indonesian courts to open Bali up to drug smuggling Australians. As a Bali resident I can tell you that, happily, the tourist industry will do no such thing. They have as large a stake as anyone in keeping drugs out of Bali to the greatest extent possible.
I can tell you also that this season is looking very very good, and there is NO perceptible fall-off in arrivals from Australia. In fact, several airlines, including Air Paradise and Garuda are adding flight to keep up with the demand.
And if you have sudh tender feelings for drug smugglers, why don't you find some in your own community that you can try agitating for their release?
Then you don't know the specifics of the case. The drugs clearly were intended for sale, but not by her. There is a massive amount of evidence proving she was an unwitting victim. The drugs were planted in her baggage without her knowledge, but not collected by the smugglers at the other end before discovery. Of course, the racist muslim zero-tolerance Indonesian courts never bothered to consider any of this evidence. They were too busy making an "example" of her.
So no sympathy? Then God help you if you ever find yourself in the same predicament.
They conveniently "mishandled" the evidence and were not able to take fingerprints.
Try as I might, I can't make out any sensible meaing in this statement.
This woman was caught trying to smuggle 9 pounds of marijuana into Bali. That's a fact.
She offered up the conjecture that baggage handlers in Brisbane had stuck the pot in in her luggage without her knowledge - and that other baggage handlers were supposed to take it out of her luggage in Sidney, but somehow failed to do so. Oooops!
She presented NO evidence to support this conjecture.
NONE.
If she were truly innocent, the check in baggage weight in Brisbane would have shown a 9 pound variance with the weight of her luggage at arrival in Denpasar. How come they didn't offer this proof at trail?
As for me, a sometime resident of Bali (due back there in September), I am grateful for the Balinese authorities in keeping Bali as drug free as possible.
For drug-smugller sympathizers like you, I urge you to find drug smugglers or drug dealers in your own communities to champion. Leave my community to the folks who live there.
Where do you get that from? I say "hang 'em high".
But Ms. Corby is not a drug smuggler. She's just an unwitting tourist who had the misfortune of having her bags picked to carry drugs.
And now she's been doubly victimized by the Indonesian kangaroo (ironic that) courts who have refused to see evidence clearing her.
What happened to Ms. Corby could have happened to anyone visiting Bali. It could just as easily have happened to you. And had it, I'm sure you'd be singing a different tune.
Usually, if there is a "massive" amount of evidence proving innocence, at least some of it is presented at trial. She presented NO evidence to prove her speculation that "baggage handlers did it".
Now, I have to tell you that I don't know that her story is false. Who knows, maybe its true. But, you know as well as I do that if you are caught with 9 poounds of pot in your luggage in any country in the world, you are going to get convicted if all you can come up with in your own defense is the unproven conjecture that "baggage handlers did it".
Only an idiot would smuggle drugs from any country period.I don't know much about her story except that she claims the drugs were planted on her.She might be telling the truth but proving it in that courtroom is almost impossible.Too bad they don't sentence terrorist who mastermind mass murder as harshly as foreign drug smugglers.
You can chose to beleive that if you want. It may even be true. But there was no real exonerating evidence presented at trial. What would you have a court do? Take every apparent drug smuggler at his or her word?
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