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Prisoner fly-in may testify at drug trial

3-23-2005 | Cindy Wockner | The Mercury

SCHAPELLE Corby's legal team are confident authorities will help clear the way for a Victorian prisoner to fly to Bali this week to testify at her trial that drugs were planted in the young woman's bag.

Late yesterday, millionaire mobile phone dealer Ron Bakir, who is paying for Corby's legal defence, revealed that plans were well advanced for the man to be escorted to Indonesia by Australian police to testify tomorrow.

He said Indonesia's Ambassador to Australia had contacted the Foreign Ministry in Jakarta to get clearance for a prisoner to be allowed into the country.

The defence intends to call three other witnesses in their case - a security officer from Brisbane airport, a criminologist and a detective of 13 years' experience.

Mr Bakir said Professor Paul Wilson, a criminologist from Bond University, would testify that in his opinion the 27-year-old does not fit the description nor have the attributes of a drug trafficker - the crime for which she is on trial and facing the maximum death penalty.

Ms Corby is accused of smuggling 4.1kg of high quality marijuana into Bali in her unlocked boogie board bag - a crime which she has consistently denied. She is on trial before three judges in the Denpasar District Court.

Mr Bakir also said a security officer from Brisbane airport, where Ms Corby and her companions boarded the flight to Bali last October, would give evidence about what the defence says are poor security arrangements at the airport and that a detective would testify about the domestic drug problem within Australia.

But it is the mystery prison informant, currently on remand in a Victorian prison, where he has been housed for the past 14 months, whose potential evidence, according to the defence lawyers, gives Ms Corby her best hope yet of beating the charges.

The man has given a sworn statement to Mr Bakir and the lawyers that he overheard a conversation between two other prisoners and that the men told how the 4.1kg of marijuana was mistakenly put in Ms Corby's bag as part of an interstate drug trafficking scam at airports.

The man has since been interviewed by Australian Federal Police. However, Commissioner Mick Keelty, who read the man's statement, has cast doubt on the man's evidence and credibility, describing it as hearsay upon hearsay and questioned whether the overheard jail conversation even related to the Corby case.

Mr Keelty angrily denied claims the man had been trying to contact the AFP for two months to pass on the information, without success.

Days of diplomatic talks and meetings between the lawyers and Australian Government ministers and officials have preceded the decision to allow the man to come to Indonesia.

After the witnesses give their evidence, Ms Corby will be the last witness in her case, either tomorrow or the following week.

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Ron Paul for the Long Haul