Is Schapelle Corby a Victim?

When Schapelle Corby was first arrested for smuggling 4.1kg of marijuana into Bali in her unlocked boogie board bag, my first thought was, ‘You idiot’. But that thought only lasted about a second. Because my second thought was, ‘Hang on – something about this just doesn’t make sense.’

I’m not particularly knowledgeable when it comes to things like smuggling drugs, but it occurred to me as being odd that, given the potential risks (death), someone would be smuggling a drug like marijuana - one that’s easily grown and is as common as mud - into Bali - into Asia - into Drug Central.

From that point on, I started to have a very uncomfortable feeling: that Schapelle Corby might actually be telling the truth. My only problem was, how did four odd kilos of hooch just magically appear in her luggage. . .

That's why, when John Ford suddenly cropped up with what sounded like an utterly incredible story – well, for the first time, things started making sense:
Corby a victim of cowards: prisoner

VICTORIAN remand prisoner John Patrick Ford has asserted that Schapelle Corby was "a victim of domestic drug trafficking run by petty criminals and cowards".

He told a Bali court yesterday some people in the drug world thought it was a joke that she was "going to get done for it". In two hours of evidence at Ms Corby's Bali trial, the 40-year-old said he had heard two other prisoners, whom he named only as Terry and Paul, talking about drug trafficking and about how the drug's owner had lost some more marijuana en route from Brisbane to Sydney.

. . .

After two hours, Mr Ford was asked if he had anything to add, and he launched into a spirited defence of Ms Corby.

"All I can say to the court (is) there is no way on God's earth Ms Corby is a drug trafficker," he said. "I know better than that. I think the court can see that as well. My belief in that is so strong I will put my personal safety at risk, and I am not asking anything in return. I just want to see justice done."

Next week prosecutors will outline what sentence they say Ms Corby should receive if she is convicted.
I have a growing feeling that a horrific tragedy may be unfolding here; that this woman is the unwitting victim she is claiming to be; that things played out very much as Ford is saying they did.

What bothers me is that the Indonesians appear not to be asking the same questions. Are they really hell bent on clobbering what they sincerely believe to be a drug courier? Or are they still paying us (and any Australian they can get their hands on, as the recent ‘gun-running’ nonsense over Christopher Packer tends to suggest) out over Timor? I guess only time, and her eventual sentence, will tell.

No comments:

Post a Comment

All comments containing Chinese characters will not be published as I do not understand them