April 6, 2005

The trials of Schapelle

There are braying reporters, dozing judiciary members, colourful lawyers and assorted hangers-on basking in the limelight and baking in the Indonesian heat. Centre stage, an Australian woman's life is at stake

By Eric Ellis

Australian dinner parties and barbecues haven’t been this exercised since the disappearance of Azaria Chamberlain.

And as the yellow “homecoming” ribbons that Schapelle Corby’s supporters urge Australians to wrap around their letterboxes suggest, the case that confronts the Gold Coast beauty student is one that has become, with its nightly updates and eccentric characters, titillating, engaging infotainment.

If it wasn’t that a young, possibly innocent, Australian woman’s life hangs in the balance, it would all be a bit Kath & Kim meets Lindy Chamberlain in the Bangkok Hilton.

Australia’s Indonesianists like to posture pompously that no two sovereign neighbours are as dissimilar as Australia and Indonesia. In the temperate south, there’s the liberal and mostly white Christian, lightly populated, wealthy Australia. Straddling the equator is the mostly Muslim, poor, overcrowded and socially conservative brown of Indonesia, which ranks as one of the world’s most corrupt nations, with a recent history of brutal dictatorship. Australia is regarded as one of the least corrupt, and one of the world’s most secure democracies.

But during the history of often tortuous dealings, rarely have individuals of each country misunderstood each other as much as during the grave conundrum facing Corby, the everyday 27-year-old daughter of a Southport fish-and-chip shop owner now known across the archipelago, thanks to Indonesia’s boisterous press, as “Ratu Marijuana”.

Corby may or may not be a Marijuana Queen but the nickname suggests Indonesian journalists can be just as keen on trial by media as their chequebook-wielding Australian counterparts. But there’s another Bahasa term that Corby has painfully added to the basic beach-bar lingo like satu lagi Bintang (“one more beer”) that Aussie kids collect during their obligatory party pilgrimage to Bali.

As she languishes in Bali’s notorious Kerobokan Jail with 550 other prisoners – about half of them drug addicts of the type Indonesia’s police claim she was supplying, and alongside Amrozi, Imam Samudra and their nightclub-bomber friends – she’s come to know that hukuman mati means death penalty, the fate that awaits her if the panel of three judges remain unconvinced by the thinnish testimonies of, most notably, Brisbane baggage-handler Scott Speed and alleged Melbourne rapist John Patrick Ford.

From much of the Australian side of the case – the media, the expanding Corby support group and even her Gold Coast lawyers and their backers – there’s a strong, almost reflex whiff about her plight that speaks to the lurking suspicions held deep in the Middle Australian psyche about Indonesia: that it’s bad, unsafe and hostile. It’s a suspicion that says Corby, who could be anyone’s daughter, might fall to her death through the yawning cracks of a legal system that, as they see it, is clearly suspect. Indeed, the three most commonly heard Aussie refrains around the chaotic courtroom in downtown Denpasar are: “They wouldn’t do this at home”, “This would be thrown out of an Australian court” and “I can’t believe this is happening in Bali; Aussies are loved here”.

From the Indonesian side, the clamour around what many see as just another drug case involving a bule (pejorative word for foreigners) trafficker just confirms several stereotypes; that polluting bules bring drugs to damage sacred Bali (when it’s equally clear that many Balinese and their fellow Indonesians can do a pretty good job of that themselves); that those same bules regard a white life as more important than an Indonesian one; that they have plenty of money to splash around on flash lawyers; and that they are disrespectful and ignorant of local beliefs and customs.

Much of this is simple misunderstanding, cultural stereotyping and ignorance on both sides. In contrast with Australia’s English-derived judicial bedrock, Indonesia’s Dutch-influenced courts don't so readily presume innocence before guilt. Corby's lawyers must prove she didn’t ship the dope to Bali and, as Judge Linton Sirait tells The Bulletin, what happens in Australia is of little interest to him – “it’s what happens in Indonesia that matters”. The evidence before him is that Schapelle Corby was, on October 8 last year, in possession of 4.1kg of a banned substance, on Indonesian soil, in an Indonesian airport where a big red and unmissable bilingual placard unambiguously states that Indonesian law demands the death penalty for drug traffickers.

These cultural disconnects are evident in court with people like Jodie Power-Ripley, the Byron Bay woman who has moved to Bali to provide moral support for her old friend. Everyone in the Corby camp agrees that the popular Jodie has been a rock, regularly ­visiting the prisoner in her grotty cell, bringing rye salad sandwiches and much-coveted bakery items into a prison that costs just a well-placed Rp10,000 (about $1.50) to visit out of hours. Jodie has been to Bali many times and claims to know her way around the island and its culture, though the split mini-dress she sports suggests she’s rarely been inside an ­Indonesian courtroom. Still, those long white legs – and then some – both wow and offend the judges, while titillating the posse of Balinese legal students in court to learn how justice is transacted in Indonesia.

They are also there when well-meaning “moral supporters” visiting from Australia drop by the court from their Bali holiday and complain they can’t hear anything “because of the ‘Mewslims’ at the bloody mosque going off”. The noise that annoys them isn’t the Islamic call to prayer but a kidung, a midday Hindu mantra chanted around the island. Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim nation but Bali is predominantly Hindu. The fact that Judge Sirait, one of the panel who condemned Bali bomb mastermind Imam Samudra to death in 2003, is a Protestant Batak from northern Sumatra and not actually Balinese is an Indonesian cultural tic too far for the Aussie crowd in this bewildering case. Pak Linton, as he’s known to the army of courtworkers and hangers-on, lives in a tiny flat behind the Corby courtroom, next door to a warung run by Ibu Slamet from Jakarta, who says he is “very fair, very nice” and likes her mee goreng for breakfast.

And likewise in the media, when The Sydney Morning Herald instinctively describes Vasudevan Rasiah, one of Corby’s Bali-based advisers, as an “Indonesian lawyer”. True, he’s brown-skinned, but Rasiah, who wears behind his ear a yellow petal that lights up his bald pate, is actually a British-educated, Australian-passport-wielding Sri Lankan Tamil who, Sirait sniffily points out, “is definitely not a lawyer”. Translated, that means “Vasu” has no formal business in Sirait’s court, despite the fact that he jots legal points on a Corrs Chambers Westgarth notepad from the toffy Melbourne firm. Between helping Corby as the crucial fixer with the local connections, Rasiah is also trying to get a casino project off the ground, controversial stuff on this conservative island.

The cultural disconnects are also evident with the suicide-blonde television reporter, her carefully applied lippy running amok in the equatorial heat. She positions herself on the business side of the courtroom barely three paces away from Sirait, the witness Ford and Corby herself. For her and her media colleagues, it’s a great spot to hear proceedings in the acoustically challenged court but not the place to take mobile phone calls from your producer in Sydney looking for a juicy update. As Ford painstakingly answers a question from the three judges in a four-way translation process – question in Bahasa translated to English, answered in English translated to Bahasa – she says: “Aww, I’m not sure about that, mate, don’t they hang ’em over here? I’ll ask someone.” If she wanted, she could have leaned over and asked Corby, who by now knows full well Indonesia executes drug offenders by firing squad.

The judges, too, have their quirks though the tendency to pick noses and inspect the liberated nasal cargo, and nod off in the heat, are traits jurists don’t learn at university, as observers of courts everywhere could testify. Still, there are not too many Australian courts where whirring TV and home-video cameras delay proceedings and where SMS messages pierce the heavy air, one or two perhaps even tapped out by the judge’s associates.

Then there’s Exhibit A, the blue-grey bodyboard case which contained, in about the only piece of evidence not in dispute, the 4.1kg of dope brought to Bali. As those in the packed un-airconditioned courtroom sweat it out, sometimes pouring bottled water over themselves to keep cool, anyone could walk into the ante-room where the bodyboard case is under a light and dozy guard and snap off a stalk to fashion a reefer. And while all this is going on, out the back of the court complex a team of local cops burn a stash of seized cocaine and illicit medications in front of local reporters, a staged display to confirm, at least rhetorically, that Indonesia is tough on drugs. When The Bulletin asks to see General Bambang Sugiarto, the detective in charge of the investigation, we explain it’s about the Corby matter. “Oh, you mean the Marijuana Queen ...” his assistant says.

In the midst of this mayhem, outwardly at least, is the oasis of calm that is Corby’s commonsense mother, Ros. She’s made a pact with her daughter, sandwiched 3m away between black-cloaked lawyers who are also prone to weeping, not to have eye contact with her while in court, lest both dissolve into uncontrollable tears.

“I’ve got to be strong for her,” she says. Struggling with the humidity and the dubious sanitation of the court complex, Ros sees almost a divine purpose for her daughter. “This is happening to Schapelle for a reason. Look at all the issues this has raised: the lax security, the baggage syndicates; I mean that bag could’ve been a bomb and no one noticed.”

Not a wealthy woman, Ros has made a deal with A Current Affair to cover her considerable expenses incurred travelling twice a month to Bali from Brisbane. Part of that deal provides that Ros not talk to other reporters. She even has a minder from Brisbane, an ACA researcher, to keep an eye on her and ward off errant hacks, a job he does imperfectly. “I’ll talk to anybody if it helps get Schapelle out of here,” she says.

Ros has been around the block but the culture clash, even with her fellow Australians, can make her wince. The journalists, who help generate public sympathy and, through it, political pressure in Canberra, also contribute to a mother’s distress. Her distraught daughter is jostled by a baying press pack tripping over itself as she arrives at court. Hack culture can be perplexing for the Corby camp, as reporters renew acquaintances and trade war stories, just hours after another earthquake strikes Sumatra. For them, the Corby case is just another in a long line of recent Indonesian dramas; the Sari Club, the Aceh tsunami, Abu Bakr Bashir et al. “Yeah mate, I think I’m gunna have to drop this one and head to Nias for this quake,” one reporter tells another within Ros’ earshot. “They reckon it’s a pretty big yarn.” The patient Ros, who has come to expect help from no one, least of all the Australian government, observes that “it’s a different world we have suddenly found ourselves in. You never get used to it; how could you?”

Amid the power-smoking, hugging, waiting and emoting, the court mood wills the weepy Corby to be innocent. Corby’s Gold Coast lawyer, Robin Tampoe, reckons that no one in the court, Indonesian or Australian, truly thinks she is guilty. He says the fact that Sirait allowed John Ford to fly to Bali and give evidence shows the lengths the court will allow to get her off. But where it is tricky for Corby is when Judge Sirait, who tells The Bulletin that she is “a polite and very well-dressed young girl”, also says he awaits evidence that conclusively proves her innocence. Tampoe says he has put 95% of the case but admits he doesn’t yet have the silver bullet that will free his client. Tampoe says the Indonesians have so far been scrupulously fair. He says there is no suggestion of a purchased verdict, as is so often the case, and neither the police investigators nor the prosecution have been particularly aggressive. Even the black T-shirted Indonesian anti-drug campaigners who waltzed into the court last year demanding her execution have switched their emphasis, saying Corby should die if she’s found guilty. Ros says the group has apologised to her.

The case has thrown up a succession of odd moments and colourful characters. They begin with the 27-year-old Lebanese-­Australian mobile-phone tycoon Ron Bakir, who is bankrolling the Corby defence for reasons he claims are entirely altruistic. A former bankrupt who also funds boxer Anthony Mundine, Bakir runs a Gold Coast-based mobile-phone dealership called Mad Ron’s. Described by his associates as a “likeable rogue with his heart in the right place”, he too has had his legal challenges. In 2002, he was found guilty of contempt of court in Queensland for failing to honour a ruling in favour of his former business partner, who was also his ex-fiancée. In 2003, he was forced by a court to change the name of his firm from Crazy Ron’s when the Sydney vendor Crazy John’s won a case citing trademark plagiarism.

Bakir is underwriting Corby’s Irish-Sri Lankan lawyer Robin Tampoe, founding partner of the Gold Coast firm Hoolihans, so named, Tampoe says, “because it sounds good”. (One of his associates jokes that Hoolihans is “just a consonant away from hooligans”.) Tampoe specialises in criminal defence but he’s also a businessman with interests in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan, and is a frequent visitor to Bali. On Good Friday, he was at Vasudevan Rasiah’s Bali villa, at a function to brief Corby supporters, when he was almost electrocuted by a microphone that wasn’t earthed. He was thrown 2m into the air and ended up in the pool, still clutching the live mike. Rasiah shut down the power, fished out the unconscious Tampoe and rushed him to hospital. “They reckon I was dead for a little while but I’m as good as gold now,” he says.

There was also the time, a few days after Corby was arrested, when her Indonesian defender, Lily Lubis, wanted to test the case before knowing how aggressively to pursue it. A Sumatran, Lily is a neophyte in drug culture, legally or otherwise. She had just won a long case winning back a Sanur ­bungalow complex which had been seized by a Balinese from the Sydney couple who built it – Bobby Griffiths, a semi-retired builder, and his wife Lee, an administrator with Corrs Chambers Westgarth.

Bobby had mentioned to Lily that he used to live next door to a retired undercover drug squad cop in Cronulla. Through that relationship, and his own with dope via the occasional recreational use “in my younger years”, Bobby told Lily he knew a bit about marijuana. Lily duly took him to inspect the Corby dope to determine its quality, while introducing him to the local police as “an expert”. “I know good stuff from bad,” says Bobby, “and this stuff was average, it wasn’t like the high-quality stuff you got big money ... I know good shit from bad. You could just tell.”

The Griffiths have subsequently become the core of the Corby support group. Lily and Rasiah stayed with them when they flew to Australia last November to research the case and lobby politicians, driving to Canberra to meet a sceptical Alexander Downer. They’ve also helped generate interest among arguably Australia’s most persuasive lobby group, the talkback radio junkies. “They did the Lawsy interview from our front room,” beams Bobby, as he cracks open another Bintang.

The Corby case arrives awkwardly for Prime Minister John Howard and his Indonesian counterpart Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Howard has carefully cultivated SBY since his election last September and SBY’s visit to Australia this week, briefly delayed by the Nias earthquake, was just the third by a sitting Indonesian president. Howard was the only Western leader at SBY’s inauguration. He and SBY (who has a son at university in Perth) call each other “close friends” and then there’s the $1bn tsunami aid package. Those same Indonesianists are almost euphoric advising us this is the rosiest period in recent relations.

Robin Tampoe says the case’s circuit-breaker – and Corby’s fate – probably lies with politicians in both countries who have so far been reluctant to get involved. “Mate, the last thing Johnny wants,” Tampoe posits, “is to have some mob out the front of the Hilton or wherever when SBY is giving a speech about how great Australia is with placards shouting murderer for the evening news.

"That would not be a good look.”