Did you hear the news? Schapelle’s got depression. Did you see the frenzy? Journalists found her at a beauty parlour and mobbed the place. Did you see her sister? Mercedes was swinging at the cameras. And that was just last month’s episode. Don’t tell me you don’t get Schapelle over there? It’s my favourite soap opera / new story.
I thought of that opening paragraph on the bus yesterday and had intended to write an amusing account of the Schapelle Corby case and the storm that surrounds her every move. But I went online this morning to check some facts and now I’m not so sure it’s very funny. So here instead are some facts.
First of all you need to know about Bali. This island in Indonesia is best described as Australia’s Ibiza. Like Ibiza it combines stunning landscapes with the best and worst that tourism can offer. You can sample expensive spas set high in the jungle where infinity pools hang over deep valleys and quiet staff cater to your every whim. Or you can kick through streets littered with loud Australians who stumble between dance parties and cockroach-infested hostels. It’s San Antonio versus Ibiza town.
On 8th October 2004 Schapelle Corby, a beautician from Queensland, was arrested at Bali’s Denpasar Airport. Police had found 4.2kg of cannabis hidden in her boogie-board bag. From that point on there was little in the Australian papers for a full twelve months but stories about poor Schapelle. She was perfect newsfodder, her huge blue eyes guaranteed to produce tears as her perfect nails pushed her hair from her face. Schapelle’s advisors seemed to think a heavy media involvement would be beneficial to her cause and she held frequent press-conferences to state her innocence.
Oliver and I were on holiday in the Northern Territories at the time of her sentencing in May 05 and like the rest of Australia we managed to find a television so we could watch the verdict. Schapelle was found guilty and was sentenced to twenty years in jail. I formed a personal connection with her at that moment as the first thing she had to do was to turn around in the courtroom and ask her mother to shut the hell up.
Since then the media frenzy has died down but any new information is immediately front page news. Her brother Clinton led a home-invasion of a known drug dealer. Schapelle was caught with a mobile phone and had her sentence increased. A photo showed her sister Mercedes smoking a big fat spliff. Oh, and everyone knows her dad is a lifetime grower and dealer. It goes on and on.
Since then of course we’ve also had the Bali nine. A group of Australians aged between 19 and 28 arrested for smuggling heroine. The luckier amongst them got life-sentences, the others the death penalty. All caught because the father of one of them, Lee Rush, informed the Australian police of what his son was planning to do and begged them to intervene. The Australian police did so by informing the Indonesian police and now Mr Rush is unlikely to ever see his son free again.
And then there’s Michele Leslie, the model caught with ecstasy in her handbag. The one who got it right, converted to islam, claimed an addiction, kept a low profile and got away with a three month sentence.
Now no one thinks any of these people are innocent, but Australians are sickened by the Indonesian justice system and to fully understand why you have to go back to 2002.
In October of that year a bomb went off in a nightclub in the Bali resort of Kuta. Unsurprisingly the club emptied everyone, injured or otherwise, onto the street. There, fifteen seconds later, a much larger car bomb exploded. A total of 202 people died and many others were horrifically burnt. 88 of the dead were Australian (14 or so from my old surf club in Coogee). Most of them were young and the last pictures of them, smiling and having fun, are heart-breaking.
Abu Bakar Bashir was convicted in 2003 of conspiracy over this bombing and others. He is widely believed to be the person who conceived and organised the whole thing. Bashir received a two-and-a-half year sentence. He was released from custody on 14th June 2006. Schapelle should get out in about twelve years. So you can you see why Australians are angry. And why somehow Schapelle’s story isn’t so funny any more.
