Help Schapelle Corby

Update: January 21, 2007

CONVICTED drug trafficker Schapelle Corby has said Christmas was an unbearable time for her, but that she hoped to return home soon under a prisoner exchange deal.

Corby, 29, is serving a 20-year sentence in Indonesia's Kerobokan prison for smuggling 4.1 kilograms of cannabis into Bali. The Queenslander maintains her innocence.

In an article for New Idea, Corby laments her first Christmas alone. "I may wear make-up and I may look OK, but I'm not OK," she says. "The pain some days, especially around Christmas, is unbearable."

Just before Christmas, Corby and fellow Australian inmate Renae Lawrence had their sentences reduced by one month for good behaviour.

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Update: January 21, 2006

SCHAPELLE Corby's fate could lie with Indonesia's president after the country's highest court rejected her appeal against her drug smuggling conviction and reinstated her original 20-year jail term.

Indonesian Supreme Court Chief Judge Mansyur Kartayasa says:

"We reject the appeal from Corby and grant the prosecution application to cancel the high court verdict and uphold the Denpasar District Court verdict."

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UPDATE: October 12, 2005.

Corby to fight on after jail term is only cut by 5 years.

Lawyers for convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby have vowed to take her legal battle to Indonesia's highest court after a Bali appeal court cut only five years from her original 20-year jail term.

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Schapelle Corby has been detained in a Balinese prison and now awaits sentencing from a panel of judges on whether she will be committed to the death penalty, by a firing squad, for allegedly attempting to import four kilograms of cannibis into Indonesia.

It is disgusting and barbaric in this day and age that a 'death penalty by firing squad' law exists, and that an Australian citizen should be subject to it. This law is out-dated and inhumane, and considering that Convicted terrorist Abu Bakar Bashir has only been sentenced to two years and Six months jail (with the prospect of appeal) for his proven 'conspiracy' participation in the Bali bombings that killed 183 people, in the same country, it is inconsistent and absurd that another person should face the death penalty for allegedly smuggling cannabis into the country.

Furthermore, the Australian Government and airlines should be taking more responsibility for this incident in any case, since it is the fault of The Australian airlines/airport that the drugs even left Australia in the first place - which also leaves us to ponder on the security and possible internal corruption of staff working at Australian airports, in light of drug smuggling and terrorism.