REMEMBER WHEN

GOLD COAST BULLETIN Monday, May 30, 2005

“I AM ready for the fight.”

Those words were Schapelle Corby’s defiant message to her legal team, family and Australia when her lawyers visited her in Kerobokan Prison.

Defence team co-ordinator Vasu Rasiah told The Gold Coast Bulletin they had explained to Ms Corby that the two-tiered appeals process involving the High Court in Bali and, if necessary, the Supreme Court in Jakarta could take a year to complete.

“When we asked her if she was ready to go through with all that, she replied, ‘more than 90 per cent of the Australian people are behind me and believe I am innocent so I am ready for the fight’,” he said.

Mr Rasiah said the then-27year-old Tugun woman’s moods and state of mind varied dramatically.

“Sometimes she is laughing, sometimes she is crying, sometimes she’s looking right through you and sometimes she is focusing on what you are saying,” he said.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said that a pardon from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono might be the best chance she has of getting her 20-year prison sentence for drug smuggling reduced.

“If the appeal fails, the easiest way of getting the sentence reduced is through an appeal for a pardon to the president of Indonesia,” he said.

But Mr Rasiah said Ms Corby was not seeking a pardon from Indonesia’s president because to do so would mean admitting to a crime she did not commit.

“Are these politicians in Australia crazy or what? Why should she plead guilty to something she hasn’t done,” he said.