Troppo Armadillo

Ken, something that has yet to reach the papers, as far as I know, is that young Schapelle is extraordinarily well-traveled for a person of her tender years and income. A friend of mine was her travel agent. She tells me that Ms Corby had made at least 8 trips to Bali in the 18 months prior to her arrest. She must really love it there.

I think she has family there. Sister?

As I keep banging on about, we did exactly the same thing to Chika Honda, a Japanese woman who naively came into Melbourne in 1992 with a suitcase she had been given where the lining turned out to be full of smack.

There are allegations her interpreters were incompetent etc etc. A significant newspaper campaign in Japan. A Japanese documentary. Activism from Australian supporters. An Australian documentary theatre piece.

She still did ten and a half years in a Victorian jail.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/11/18/1037599360343.html

Our agronomic expertise is worth a 400% premium in foreign markets for one of the world's most widely traded agricultural commodities?

This should be a matter for CSIRO not the AFP. Never mind scales of justice, what about balance of trade?

Nabs

Yes, the figures do sound a trifle high.

But another point I'd meant to cover in the post. How could Corby have failed to notice the extra weight and bulk in her boogie board bag when she picked it up from the baggage carousel? Even compressed, 4 kilos of gunja is a significant bulk, and its weight is much greater than a boogie board. It really isn't all that credible that such an additional cargo in a soft-covered boogie board bag could have come as a complete surprise to her when stopped at Customs.

And even if her sister (or whoever) lived there, 8 trips in 18 months is an awful lot.

And the stash was perfectly moulded to the boogie bag......I guess there could be baggage handlers with several sizes of stash ready to custom-fit a wide variety of receptacles, but.....

And to be frank, is it really a good look in these circumstances to have your defence PR'ed by an eternally sunnies-wearing Gold Coast mobile phone entrepreneur whose every OTT utterance is a "Pizza' script line?

I was just wondering.....

I wonder why, if she was drug smuggling before on her previous trips, she was never caught. It didn't seem like there was much effort to hide the drugs, so why wasn't she picked up before this? This story just keeps getting weirder. Truth really can be stranger than fiction.

Yeah, and I've got one old passport that reads like the veritable heroine trail.

There are a few anecdotes about Corby around the trap. If I believe one report, Corby was married and lived in Japan a while harvesting 'green tea', returning to Oz after her marriage broke down. That has been interpreted as 'guilty as sin' by some (!!??). But she won't be the first Aussie woman who has married a Japanese and moved to a Japanese rural community - I can name one too.

Has any of it been raised as relevant by the prosecution? And maybe under the Indonesian justice system it's as irrelevant as it may be under ours even though the two systems are different?

From what I understand, Indonesian judges make their judgements largely on prima facie evidence. A charge is as good as a declaration of guilt. No innocent until proven guilty here. And also, she hasn't escaped the death penalty yet. If the judges find her guilty, they can still ignore the sentencing recommendations.

I reckon the Bali nine, while literally caught red handed and on tape are in a better position to get justice, simply because of AFP involvement and some basic procedures have been followed, and there is more chance of getting solid evidence etc. that will provide the 'beyond reasonable doubt' (which also doesn't seem to operate in Indonesia from what I understand anway but it may at least be more satisfactory for us).

This even if the young alleged 'what happened to Corby happened to us' mastermind seems to be permanently giving out 'gifts' to his fellow prisoners and jailers and increasingly painting himself in my eyes as predatory scum who deserves to go down for a long long time.

Yeah, howzat for a presumption of guilt.

ken, I would like to question Miss Devine's sources.
It is sometime since I looked at the demand for weed but the demand came from midlle to high income types which is why it comes wholesales to Australia from Bali not the reverse.

If Miss Devine's figures are correct then why aren't a lot of OZ farmers trying to get into this market?

"It is sometime since I looked at the demand for weed but the demand came from midlle to high income types which is why it comes wholesales to Australia from Bali not the reverse."

Marijuana is pretty classless Homer. It's as much at home in the young unemployed milieu as it is as a post-prandial at Vaucluse dinner parties. Hydroponic - the stuff at issue here - isn't the dope that's typically grown in Bali. You kind of need reliable and not inexpensive western infrastructure. But it tends to pack way more punch than the naturally-grown product.

There's a sizeable expat community in Bali and I wouldn't be at all surprised if Oz farmers were trying to get into that market.

thanks Geoff,
Last time I looked the icome elasicity for the product was quite reasonable which means you would have more demand for the product in Australia than from Expats in Bali without the transportation troubles involved.
It still doesn't explain why the stuff was 'going' to Bali.

I would have thought you could grow it in Bali without much trouble or surveilance. Why take the gamble of importing it.

Here's what I don't understand: if Corby did import it deliberately, then she had to get it from somewhere, right? If she were being tried in an Australian court and the only evidence were possession and the accused said "I have no idea how it got there", then to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the prosecution would try to trace back where it came from ... you know, try to track her movements for the couple of days before, interview acquantences to see whether they remembered her carrying a largish package, etc.

As far as I know, no such evidence has been introduced in Corby's trial, right? Has the AFP done that type of investigation?

I don't agree with Ken that you'd get a prosecution in an Australian court without having at least attempted that type of investigation. It would be too easy for the defense to say "these guys haven't done their job and don't have a clue."

"I would have thought you could grow it in Bali without much trouble or surveilance. Why take the gamble of importing it"

Big returns, basically.

but you would make larger returns making it domestically without the 'problems involved in importing it.

It makes little sense

Mork

You've answered you question, haven't you. Corby is being tried in Indonesia and prosecuted by the Indonesian police. The AFP is not investigating the matter, nor has any reason to do so.

Ken

I hadn't read that Corby refused to open the bag - not that I've followed the case religiously. But it makes a big difference, as you say. Where did you hear/read it?

My recollection is that that was the evidence given at trial, as reported in the media. My recollection is that Corby didn't really dispute that, but suggested that she'd been flustered/confused at first. But I might conceivably be wrong; I'm working solely on a very fallible memory.

I recall that the police evidence was that she identified the bag as hers and then refused to open it when asked.

James: but the AFP almost certainly HAS investigated ... after all, there was definitely a crime committed in Australia. Don't you think they're curious about how the drugs got there? There has to be something more to that side of things than meets the eye.

"There has to be something more to that side of things than meets the eye."

Why? Growing hydroponic gunja is a thriving Australian cottage industry. All you need is a reasonably secure large room, some grolights, timer irrigation system, and a DIY book about hydroponics (and some good seeds). There are so many growers of quality indoor product that the police would have Buckley's chance of discovering where Corby got the stuff in the absence of inside intelligence.

I have been to the court and seen the body board bag first hand, if she were going to take drugs in the body board bag why put them in a clear plastic bag, or at the very least why not try to hide them by putting a beach towel around them. There is no smell eminating from the closed bag, the stench when the bag is opened is a different matter.

Also her body language when arrested was one of disbelievment and shock, unlike the Bali Nine who immediately knew they were in deep doo doo.

I have quite a bit of info about my trip on my blog.

ken ,
if you are correct and I will willingly acknowledge your greater understanding in this matter, it still becomes much cheaper to do that in Bali then here and export the stuff.

This matter has a bad smell about it.

That's because Parry has been stoned for months now and the reek of gunja is beginning to infiltrate your pure and pristine environment Homer

love jen

That's typical of you Martha, dragging everyone else down to your own prozac-sodden level. Twenty first century Bex, and depression means whatever you want, including bad-tempered, patronising and self-deludingly sarcastic. Poor Homer. Drops in for an innocent comment box natter and this is what he gets landed with.