Pubdate: Sun, 29 May 2005
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005 The Province
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouver/theprovince/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Associated Press
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)

AUSTRALIANS LINE UP TO FIGHT MARIJUANA VERDICT

CANBERRA, Australia -- Indonesia's justice minister will meet the legal 
team of an Australian woman sentenced to 20 years prison for smuggling 
marijuana, her Australian lawyer said yesterday, as the team considered 
pursuing political as well as legal ways to free her.

The Australian public and media have widely condemned the Bali District 
Court's conviction and sentencing on Friday of 27-year-old Schapelle Corby 
for trying to smuggle 4.1 kilograms of marijuana through Bali's airport in 
October.

Polls show an overwhelming majority of Australians accept her story that 
someone else had placed the drugs in her surfboard bag.

Her lawyers have suggested it may have been corrupt airport baggage 
handlers who had intended to transport the marijuana within Australia, but 
failed to retrieve it before Corby's luggage was transferred to an 
international flight in Sydney.

Lawyer Robin Tampoe, of Corby's hometown of Gold Coast in Queensland state, 
said Indonesian Justice Minister Hamid Awaluddin had agreed to speak to 
Corby's legal team to discuss options.

"We'll pursue every conceivable avenue that we can," Tampoe said when asked 
if he wanted to pursue political negotiations as well as a judicial appeal.

"Anything we can possibly do to get Schapelle Corby home," he said. 
"Everything is an option."

Prime Minister John Howard, who advocates a zero-tolerance policy toward 
drugs, on Friday took the unusual step of expressing sympathy for Corby.

The government has offered financial backing for her appeal, and two senior 
Australian lawyers have agreed to work on the case for free. Tampoe 
accepted the offer.

The case against Corby, a student beautician, has generated Australian 
hostility toward Indonesia and created a diplomatic balancing act for 
Howard's government, which has a fragile relationship with Jakarta.

Howard wants to be seen as doing all he can for Corby, but he also needs to 
show respect for neighboring Indonesia's legal system.

Australia's Daily Telegraph newspaper contrasted Corby's sentence with that 
of militant Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir for his part in the bombings 
that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians, in 2002.

"The justice system that gave a terrorist leader two years' jail for his 
part in the Bali bombing yesterday sentenced Schapelle Corby to 20 years 
for smuggling cannabis," the newspaper said yesterday in a front-page story 
headlined "Nation's Fury."
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