Pubdate: Sat, 21 May 2005
Source: Courier-Mail, The (Australia)
Copyright: 2005 News Limited
Contact:  http://www.thecouriermail.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/98
Author: Cindy Wockner, Denpasar, Bali
Photo: CLOSE to breaking point . . . a handcuffed Schapelle Corby struggles 
to cope in her cell at Denpasar District Court. 
http://www.mapinc.org/images/Schapelle.jpg
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Schapelle (Schapelle Corby)

COMFORT OF STRANGERS IN HER DARKEST HOURS

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.

It is almost like no Bali holiday is complete now without the
mandatory visit to Kerobokan Jail.

One man said: "To be honest, I'm a bit nervous. I don't really want to
go in there. Have you ever been inside. Is it safe to visit her?"

Two women who had bought their teenage daughters, sporting colourful
hair braiding which smacked of Kuta Beach, are desperate to be allowed
in. The women say they want their daughters to meet "her".

It is with bitter disappointment they learn visitors are not allowed
that day.

Another man confides his mate is a policeman who has warned him not to
go near the place. But he says he just wants to give her some things
and let her know people are thinking of her.

In the seven months since Corby was arrested she has garnered the
Australian public's fascination in a way that is almost
unprecedented.

But unlike the woman she is most often compared to - Lindy
Chamberlain, whose conviction for murdering her nine-week-old daughter
Azaria was quashed in 1988 in the famous "dingo took my baby" case -
the public does not despise Corby.

They empathise with her and believe fervently she is innocent of
trying to import 4.1kg of cannabis into Bali.

Hence ordinary mums and dads make the extraordinary vigil to the jail
just behind Kuta's tourist strip, to visit a woman they have never met
but whom they feel they know intimately.

The support has helped Corby through some of her darkest
hours.

Others turn up to the Denpasar District Court to sit in the heat for
hours waiting for the case to start and to get a glimpse of the young
woman with one of the best-known faces in Australia.

Ask Carolyn (she didn't want to give her surname) why she has come to
court and the answer is simple: "To support another Aussie. Why
wouldn't we?"

Like Carolyn, they all have a view. Some say: "You just get a sense
about people and I think she is innocent."

Others can't see how she could get a fair trial in
Indonesia.

In the past four months, since the drug smuggling trial started in
late January, the small Bali courtroom has become a stage for a
gripping human drama.

It was made all the more gripping because a young woman's life was on
the line.

And at times, just when the drama seemed to subside, a new twist
emerged. The leaders of both Australia and Indonesia were even drawn
into the controversy in a most exceptional way, both commenting
publicly on the case and expressing a hope that the verdict would be
just and fair.

Before the case even got to court, Corby's lawyers travelled to
Australia in a bid to seek Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer's
assistance in having the drugs forensically tested.

Mr Downer said there were some disturbing aspects to the case and he
would try to help.

But not much was achieved. The drugs were not tested and no video
surveillance footage from Brisbane or Sydney airports was uncovered.

The case's profile went up a few notches when millionaire Gold Coast
mobile phone dealer Ron Bakir joined the defence team.

He had never met Corby but decided in late February to bankroll her
defence.

A reluctant Australian Government found itself getting more and more
drawn in to the matter.

Meetings with federal ministers and police were arranged and Qantas
and airport security were drawn back into the debate, with Mr Bakir's
Australian lawyers again trying to get any closed-circuit television
footage or documentation about what happened to Ms Corby's luggage
after she checked in at the airport.

They didn't get any but what they did get was the whiff of a potential
saviour - John Patrick Ford. Address: Port Phillip Prison, Victoria.

On remand on charges of allegedly raping, stalking and threatening to
kill, Ford said he had overheard prisoners laughingly recall how one
dealer had lost a sack of drugs because they had been put in the wrong
bag and that some chick in Bali was now copping it.

The defence needed a way to get Ford into the Bali
courtroom.

That was when it became diplomatic. It needed the Australian and
Indonesian governments to agree to have a prisoner flown over. Shortly
after Easter he was in Bali.

But Ford's evidence did not go down well with the judges. He refused
to name or even write down the name of the person who allegedly put
the drugs in Corby's bag, saying: "I am 100 per cent certain if I
mention this person's name connected to this case I will be killed,
very likely Ms Corby as well, just to prove a point."

Then came the bribery allegations. Without using the word, Mr Bakir
suggested on Sydney radio that the prosecutor in the case had sought a
bribe in return for a favourable outcome.

The prosecutor angrily denied the inference.

The Indonesian authorities promised a full investigation and Mr Bakir
left Bali, fearing arrest.

Corby found all the pressure too much to bear.

She became ill, lost weight and her face became painfully drawn. Her
eyes lost their sparkle and hope. The lawyers and her family feared
she could become suicidal.

The most dramatic day came when the prosecutor was due to deliver his
long-awaited sentence demand. As photographers and camera crews
crowded close to Corby as she took her seat in the witness box, she
collapsed on to the shoulder of her female translator, her eyes closed
and hand limp.

Her sister Mercedes leapt over the court barrier, her mother Rosleigh
implored the media to give her space, her father Michael shouted and
the judges unsuccessfully tried to maintain order.

Court was postponed for a week so Corby could get a medical
check-up.

Then the prosecution delivered its demand for life behind bars and
not, as some had expected, a firing squad. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake