Court overturns Corby's appeal

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Sat, 03/29/2008 11:13 AM  |  National

The Supreme Court announced Friday in Jakarta it had rejected a final appeal by an Australian woman sentenced to 20 years in jail for smuggling marijuana into Bali.

The country's top court maintained the 20-year jail term handed down by the Denpasar District Court in Bali for Schapelle Leigh Corby in May 2005.

The district court had also originally ordered her to pay a fine of Rp 100 million (US$11,000).

In October 2005, the Denpasar High Court reduced her punishment to 15 years imprisonment, but the Supreme Court returned her punishment to 20 years during the appeal.

"We have rejected her appeal. The original verdict stands," Supreme Court spokesman Nurhadi said, reading out a verdict.

"The defendant has clearly been proven guilty of having imported marijuana into Indonesia," he said.

Nurhadi, who heads the court's legal and public relations bureau, said the panel of judges turned down reasons proposed in the appeal, including an argument made by Corby and her lawyers that the judges had refused to allow witnesses testifying via teleconference.

Nurhadi said there was no regulation requiring them to accept such a testimony delivery.

"We also overturned the argument that the judges had wrongly implemented Narcotics Law No. 22/1997 as a legal basis to punish Corby," he said.

Nurhadi said the Supreme Court ordered Corby to continue serving her prison term until 2024.

Corby has served four years of her jail sentence at Kerobokan Penitentiary in Denpasar.

She was arrested on Oct. 8, 2004 at the Ngurah Rai Airport after acknowledging she was the owner of a boogie-board bag in which 4.1 kilograms of marijuana was stashed.

Responding to the verdict, Corby's lawyer Erwin Siregar said he could not accept the court's latest decision.

"She is innocent. Since the beginning we've known the things were in Corby's luggage without her knowledge.

"The bag was not locked and it (the drugs) was inside a clear plastic bag. If she was a real trafficker, she would not have done that," Erwin said as quoted by AFP.

The lawyer said Corby and her team of attorneys had not yet been officially notified about the verdict.

"So we can't decide what the next steps to be taken for my client should be. I know that we cannot ask for a case review and the last chance for my client would be a presidential pardon," he said.

Corby's sentence outraged many Australians, partly due to its severity and partly because many believed the beautician's claim of innocence.

Corby is among several young Australians serving time in Indonesian prisons for drug offenses.

Also in the same prison as Corby are the so-called Bali Nine, a gang of Australians convicted of smuggling heroin from Indonesia to Australia in 2005.

The gang's three ring-leaders, Scott Rush, Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, are on death row, while the six other members are serving prison sentences ranging from 20 years to life. (ewd)

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