Denpasar Airport

The actual placement of the marijuana, at Denpasar airport, would in some respects have been a formality. However, it is worth pointing out a number of aspects relating this.

The Slashed Bag
The marijuana was in a large transparent space bag within the board bag: the inner bag had been slashed across its width with a blunt instrument to release the smell. This was presumably done to make sure that it was detected by the customs officer

The Tampered Zip and Placement
No attempt had been made to hide the drugs within the outer board bag. In addition, the zip of the board bag had been tampered with and moved to the center, by accident (in the rush to stuff the marijuana inside), or by design (to make it more straight forward for the customs officer to open). The shoulder strap of the bag had also been broken.

The Role of the Bag
Schapelle Corby’s boogie board bag was one of the first pieces of luggage removed from the aircraft, and was thus a good target for insertion. Equally, it was almost empty, making it a prime candidate.

It was also a unisex bag, which contained surfing gear, with the name ‘Schapelle’ providing no clue whatsoever to a native Indonesian that the owner might be female. Indeed, a correspondent recently commented “One can easily imagine the clear vision of a male surfer, bleached dreadlocks, DOPE tattooed on his knuckles, and a string of convictions back home in Australia. All boxes thus ticked, including that of a more compliant Australia, who would have immediately pre-judged this ‘surfer druggie’ as guilty”.

Schapelle’s Brother
It appears that so immersed were they with this expectation, that they detained Schapelle Corby’s brother for 30 minutes, despite Schapelle herself stating that the bag was hers!

Trafficking Requirement
Equally, the charge of “trafficking” requires the involvement of other parties: so why was Schapelle’s sister, Mercedes, who was waiting for her at the hotel and who later arrived at the airport, not arrested? Or indeed, any other party at all? Why no investigation?

The Requirement for Complicity
Our correspondent continues: “It would have been quite a shock to discover that ‘Schapelle Corby’ was in fact a non-drug-taking, very attractive and visibly innocent ‘snow white’ young woman, with no criminal history at all. It was also a real fly in the ointment. With a druggie-surfer, the Australian government would have had little option but to remain relatively silent. Now though, the Indonesians required some level of complicity.

The anticipated execution plan was also de-railed, as every human rights, religious and documentary group not under government control would have been all over the case and all over the evidence. But this particular buck (the capital offence requirement for specific funds: see later) was passed on relatively quickly courtesy of the Bali 9, whom the Australian Federal Police (AFP) conveniently allowed to fly to their death sentence.”


Next: Australian Complicity

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