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Deal close on Indonesia jail exchange
08-07-06 | TheWest.Com.au

A prisoner exchange treaty with Indonesia is set to be formally signed within weeks and could see convicted drug trafficker Schapelle Corby released from her Bali jail and returned to Australia by Christmas.

But the Federal Government is unsure if Corby is prepared to use the exchange treaty or if she wishes to first exhaust all avenues of appeal against her 20-year sentence.

She was pictured recently being visited in Kerobokan prison by Balinese friends and appears to be more settled. Corby’s living conditions are tough — she shares a cell with around seven other women — but she still wears lipstick and cheekily sports fashion accessories with her prison garb.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said officials from his department would travel to Jakarta in the next few days to discuss remaining areas of disagreement over the treaty. Mr Ruddock said Indonesian Law and Human Rights Minister Hamid Awaludin hoped to sign the treaty during a visit to Australia next month.

An in-principle agreement was reached in June at the Indonesia-Australia ministerial forum in Bali, leaving only two sticking points.

“We have narrowed the areas of disagreement and I think we’ll get a sensible resolution of the areas in which there is requirement for us to finally agree,” Mr Ruddock told ABC television yesterday.

“It’s a question of how much time should be served in the country in which you were originally detained and sentenced. And we want to explore how that should occur.”

But Mr Ruddock said a prisoner must apply for an exchange and there was no certainty Corby would.

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd supported the treaty, which could see Corby and some of the Bali Nine swapped with Indonesians in Australian jails, such as poachers.

Corby received a 20-year sentence in May last year after 4.1kg of cannabis was found in her luggage at Bali airport in October 2004.

Fellow Australian prisoner Renae Lawrence — the only woman among the Bali Nine heroin smugglers — has forged a strong bond with Corby and has spoken publicly of attempting suicide. Lawrence, 28, is keen to start a soccer competition in Kerobokan to help cope.

“Renae wants to teach some of the girls soccer but they are having trouble getting time out in the yards,” her father Bob said. Lawrence was eligible to have her sentence cut by the Indonesian Government on Thursday, Australian officials said last week.