Showing posts with label bali. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bali. Show all posts

Thursday, 11 December 2008

Aussie painter jailed on Bali drug charges

An Australian painter convicted of drug use in Bali has been jailed for eight months.

Sydney man Shane Christos Demos, 37, was on Thursday found "officially and convincingly guilty" of using hashish and heroin.

Following a trial in the Denpasar District Court, chief judge Nyoman Sutama imposed a sentence of eight months.

Demos had acted against the Indonesian government's efforts to fight drug abuse in the country, Mr Sutama said.

The jail term was slightly more lenient than the one-year sentence sought by prosecutors.

Demos was arrested in September outside a shop in Bali's Double Six nightclub area.

A police search found 5.9 grams of dried hashish and 0.3g of heroin hidden in a cigarette box in his pants.

The Australian told authorities he had paid one million rupiah ($A140) for the hashish, but had been given the heroin for free at a nearby restaurant.

Mr Sutama noted that Demos did not have a criminal record and had expressed remorse.

"The defendant admitted to and regretted his actions. The defendant promised never to repeat his actions again," the chief judge said.

He said Demos had admitted using drugs to self-medicate following a car accident.

Defence lawyer Daniar Tri Sasongko said the Australian "accepted the verdict" and asked that his client be given medical treatment while in prison.

Monday, 10 November 2008

Aust govt inconsistent on death penalty


Imam Samudra, 38, Amrozi, 47, and Mukhlas, 48, have all been executed.

The lawyer for one of the Bali Nine members facing death row says attempts to have his client's life spared will not be taken seriously unless the Federal Government consistently opposes the death penalty.

Solicitor John North represents drug smuggler Scott Rush and he wants the Federal Government to step up diplomatic pressure on Indonesia over capital punishment following the Bali bombers' execution.

Mr North says while he understands why the Government did not campaign for the lives of the bombers, the Government cannot pick and choose.

"Probably can't expect them to do it because they were such monstrous crimes but the thing is they should make it quite clear to the many Indonesians that they value life, all human life," he said.

"They shouldn't try and cherry pick those that should be executed and those that should not."

Quote: All those innocent people killed in East Timor, Iraq, Afghanistan (Colateral Damage) never committed any crime and they were killed. Murdered in fact in cold blood by Indonesia and Australia and its complicity in those illegal and degrading wars and crimes against humanity. The fact is our government murder people in cold blood anytime they think that they can get away with it and they do so with impunity.

Related:

Indonesia tells bombers families get ready
The families of the Indonesian Islamists on death row for the 2002 Bali bombings have been told to "get ready" for the executions, a prosecutor says.

Protest Bali bombers' executions - priest
High profile Catholic priest Frank Brennan has called on the Australian Government to speak out against the execution of the three Bali bombers as it draws nearer.

Fool me twice 1-20 -Official release (BALI BOMBINGS/ETimor) Exposing the Australian government's lies about the East Timor massacres, the cover-up of the Bali bombings (including '93 WTC attack) and subsequent anti-terror legislation forced through parliament.

The Truth About Bali Bombings

Part One + Two: Que Bono. Who Benefited? The Bali Bombings were a direct US-Israeli response to the growing Peace marches and Anti War Movement in Australia that was ballooning at an alarming rate after 9-11 and after Bush announced he was waging illegal invasions. It also very quickly secured Indonesia's and Australia's subservience to the US and cemented involvement in the US led War on Terror, and subsequent illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Rudd firm on capital punishment stance

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the fact that he backs the death penalty for the Bali bombers in Indonesia does not signal any change in his opposition to capital punishment in Australia.

Push for clear line on death penalty
PRESSURE is mounting on the Rudd Government from the Labor back bench to adopt a tougher stand against the death penalty.

I had no choice, says courier facing death
AN AUSTRALIAN sentenced to death in Vietnam this week for heroin trafficking told officials she was forced into the crime to pay off her husband's gambling debts.

'Bali nine' trio's death sentences overturned
Three 'Bali nine' members still face the death penalty, including the group's ringleaders, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, as well as Rush, the only drug mule still sentenced to death.

Saturday, 18 October 2008

Protest Bali bombers' executions - priest


The attack was a conspiracy between "America, Australia and the Jews" and the three convicted bombers - Amrozi, Imam Samudra and Ali Ghufron - had been framed: Abu Bakar Bashir

High profile Catholic priest Frank Brennan has called on the Australian Government to speak out against the execution of the three Bali bombers as it draws nearer.

Father Brennan said Australia needed to maintain a strong stance against capital punishment - including for the Bali bombers - or risk confusing the issue.

"We all feel profound sympathy for the victims and the victims' families," he told a death penalty panel discussion at the Ubud Writers Festival in Bali today.

"It's no denial of our sympathy to say we have a deep sympathy for you and your plight, but we still maintain a constant philosophical approach, namely that the death penalty in all circumstances is wrong."

His comments came as three Islamic militants on death row over the 2002 Bali bombings [scapegoats] were today visited by family members as Indonesia prepares to announce details of their impending executions.

Indonesia's attorney-general today reportedly reiterated the men would be put to death this year, and he would announce the month next week.

"Information is expensive ... later on the 24th, I will not announce everything," Hendarman Supandji said on Indonesia's ElShinta radio.

Indonesia's Constitutional Court is expected to rule on Tuesday on a side challenge by the bombers' lawyers, who have argued the country's use of firing squads to carry out executions amounts to torture.

Defence lawyer Achmad Michdan said Amrozi and Imam Samudra were visited by their wives, mothers and other relatives at their Nusakambangan Island prison, off Central Java, today.

He said relatives of Amrozi's brother Mukhlas would visit next week.

The men were convicted of playing key roles [scapegoats] in the October 12, 2002, Bali nightclub bombings which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.

Rush hopeful

Meanwhile, death row Australian drug mule Scott Rush has written a letter read to the Bali writers' festival, hoping for changes to laws which one day might overturn his own death sentence.

"I'm not a writer but I am a convicted criminal," the now 22-year-old Rush wrote.

"I have been through some very rough times and have experienced some very long, slow nights.

"I have had a lot of time to think and I'm very sorry for what I have done and what I have caused.

"I still hope that one day I can show I'm capable of reform."

Bali bombers' executions not fair: judge

The former chief justice of Indonesia's Constitutional Court has questioned the fairness of executing the Bali bombers under convictions which were previously declared to be unconstitutional.

Until very recently Jimly Ashidique was the chief justice of Indonesia's Constitutional Court, where he remains as judge for the next few months.

He said that rulings of the constitutional court effectively change Indonesian law.

In 2004 the court ruled that it was unconstitutional to convict the Bali bombers under an anti-terrorism law enacted after those terrorist attacks.

That decision however was said not to effect sentences which have already been handed down, such as the 2003 death sentences on Amrozi, Mukhlas and Imam Samudra.

However Justice Ashidique said that according to Indonesia's criminal code any change in the law after a crime is committed should be decided in favour of the accused.

"It is not fair," he said, adding that such decisions are up to judge's discretion.

Related:

Rudd firm on capital punishment stance

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the fact that he backs the death penalty for the Bali bombers in Indonesia does not signal any change in his opposition to capital punishment in Australia.

[What a contradiction in terms?]

Mr Rudd says the three men on death row in Indonesia over the bombings that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians, are cowards and mass murderers who deserve the justice that will be delivered to them.

[Wrong again: The convicted Bali bombers did not have the means to create such a bomb. There are reports that in one Balinese kampong that provided labour to the clubs in Kuta Beach, seven empty coffins were buried, because there were no identifiable remains of the missing workers. It was as if they had been vaporised. Scores of people, mainly locals, are thought to have disappeared without trace.]

Cleric blames CIA for Bali bombing
An Indonesian Islamic cleric said the 2002 attack which killed more than 200 people, including 88 Australians, was the work of the CIA.

Tears flow for Bali victims :Australia's Terrorism Wake Up Call
The horrific bombings of the Sari Club and Paddy's Bar in Bali, on October 12, 2002, considerably strengthened the hand of the Coalition of the Willing (CoW) in pursuing the War on Terror. Here was an opportunity to harden the hearts of the Australian and US public against Islamic fundamentalists. It was also a chance for the Indonesian government to justify harsh measures in the war against terrorists and secessionists, such at those in the province of Aceh.

Death penalty ban 'would help save Bali 9'
A Sydney Federal Labor backbencher says a permanent Commonwealth ban on the death penalty will help the campaign to get Australians off death row in Bali.

Monday, 13 October 2008

Tears flow for Bali victims


Australia's Terrorism Wake Up Call

The horrific bombings of the Sari Club and Paddy's Bar in Bali, on October 12, 2002, considerably strengthened the hand of the Coalition of the Willing (CoW) in pursuing the War on Terror. Here was an opportunity to harden the hearts of the Australian and US public against Islamic fundamentalists. It was also a chance for the Indonesian government to justify harsh measures in the war against terrorists and secessionists, such at those in the province of Aceh.

In Australia, a heightened public awareness of the threat of terrorism on the mainland created an opportunity for the Feds to introduce draconian legislation that is designed to remove established rights and strengthen the powers of the authorities to ruthlessly crush all forms of dissent.

Eighty eight of the 202 fatalities resulting from the attack were Australian nationals. There were also many Australian casualties, some of these people will never fully recover from the horrendous burns they suffered. Oddly, many of the bodies of the victims of the atrocity could not be readily assembled into individual's remains, even with modern genetic and forensic technologies being available via the Australian Federal Police (AFP). On March 1, 2003, some 185 body parts (not whole cadavers) were cremated in a ceremony at the Mumbul Cemetery. At that time it was stated that another 43 fragmentary remains were still held at the morgue, pending final disposition by the investigators.

There are reports that in one Balinese kampong that provided labour to the clubs in Kuta Beach, seven empty coffins were buried, because there were no identifiable remains of the missing workers. It was as if they had been vaporised. Scores of people, mainly locals, are thought to have disappeared without trace.

A Uniquely Terrible Event

The bombings at the American Consulate and Paddy's Bar were horrific enough, but the main blast, outside the Sari Club that was regularly patronised by Australians, was uniquely terrible. Despite the later impressions conveyed by Indonesian and Australian police investigators, the Sari bomb was not a typical van bomb. The facts in this regard are verifiable and indisputable. That they contradict the official truth should surprise nobody. However, the alternative truth will undoubtedly further sadden the families of the many victims of that October night at Kuta Beach.

The following are eye witness reports and quotes culled from many published shortly after October 12, 2002.

Names are not used here, lest the memories again disturb families that are already deeply hurt by the cruel attack.

*"The first blast sent hundreds of tourists and many local people rushing out of Paddy's onto the already crowded Legian street. Then the explosion outside the Sari went off with a much more powerful blast, shredding flesh and metal, hurling people and cars horizontally through the air."

*"I got about 30 meters down the street and then I heard one blast and I thought, 'What was that?'

Then the power cut...all the power went out. I didn't think bomb. I didn't think anything at that stage.

And then, probably, I'd say two seconds later, there was just the huge flash, and I was just covered in glass, put on the ground, and it just started...it was like hell on earth."

*"The sound seemed to get louder and quieter and it was all over the place. When I looked up to the sky. I found it to be a bright red ball with pure white smoke rising from it in mushroom form."

*"It was AC/DC times 100. Then there was an unbelievable silence."

*"I saw heaps of people burning and dying around me. It was an inferno. I saw one guy whose leg had been blown open - he couldn't walk - he was just lying there screaming. I saw another man with severe facial burns "

*"It's the faces of the people you made eye contact with I'll never forget. For the ones you just passed on it's okay, but the ones you looked in their eyes, I can't get them out of my head, the blood down the faces, their fear."

*"One woman had lost the whole bottom half of her body. A Balinese man was crawling up the lane. He had no feet. We took six people into the hotel where we could help them. We did everything we could for them. But how they suffered."

*"Many of the wounds, especially burns were extreme. Injuries included fractures, head and chest injuries, respiratory problems, but overwhelmingly burns."

*"Brave men were pulling out corpses at a rate of one every two minutes. All were charred beyond recognition, locked in poses which showed the agony of their dying. One was welded in a sitting position to what remained of a steel chair frame."

*"...had been on the dance floor at the Sari. The blast injured her in both legs - one so badly it had to be amputated - and the fire burnt her severely. But she was alive, like scores of other Australians in the hospital."

*"Some of them did not have IV fluid, their cannulas were not in properly. They had been put onto beds and just left there. They had urine and vomit and excreta all around them."

*"Doctors conducted escharotomies, slicing through burnt skin on arms and legs to release pressure, saving the limbs. They used scalpel blades purchased from pharmacies by Australian volunteers. They had only the scalpel heads, not the blade holders. There was no morphine of pethidine and patients were given ibuprofen in a drip form, which can harm the kidneys. Patients felt the operation, many screamed in agony as it was conducted."

*"The burns were dreadful. Some people had breathed in flame and cooked their internal organs."

*"He died on me twice on the way to the airport. We got him onto the plane but sadly he died on the trip. One young girl died on the way to the airport. But we ended up evacuating 65 people from Sanglah Hospital."

*"A young woman died on the tarmac at 3am. She was known only as Ms X as she had no family or friends with her."

*"Inside the morgue, pieces of paper and information and jewellery were piled in boxes on the floor. An Australian volunteer kept running back to the crayon lists of dead and missing at the hospital's main entrance to try to give worried family members suggestions about what procedure to follow. But confusion reigned and there was absolutely no one in evidence from the Australian consulate or military to offer advice or authority."

*"One burn patient demands a huge amount of attention if they're going to survive, particularly with the percentages we're talking about. Some of the burns we calculated were up to 70 percent-plus on the individual and quite a lot of them were full thickness burns and unfortunately not a lot of superficial burns."

*"She had burns to the facial area, burns to the respiratory system, making breathing almost impossible and base of skull injuries producing brain swelling, making it very difficult for us to manage without appropriate equipment."

*"While the federal Health Minister praised health authorities and workers (in Australia) for responding "magnificently" to the emergency, doctors compared their patients to victims of war."

NSW State Wide Severe Burns Unit chairman and Concord Hospital burn injury unit director Peter Haertsch said he had never seen civilian casualties like those he had operated on in the previous 24 hours.

*"I've seen plenty of burns but I've not seen this combination of injury, it's something you wouldn't see in civilian life and it's something I haven't seen in 22 years of burns surgery."

Doctor Fiona Wood of the Royal Perth Hospital burns unit said that the debris, dirt and sheer velocity associated with the blast had combined to create the worst burns she had ever seen.

She said, "I've been training for 20 years for this. I've practised for it, but I never expected it."

The central governments of Indonesia and Australia did not exactly cover themselves with glory in the time immediately following the Bali bombing. Nor were they to distinguish themselves by the way the subsequent joint-investigation of the atrocity was handled. Put bluntly, the police and other officials involved in the latter fiasco should never, ever, be believed again. No matter what they say or do. Read on to discover why this is so.

Flaws In The Official Truth About 1012 - The Crater

While it is not possible to be sure of the real nature of the explosive device that was triggered outside the Sari Club, we can be sure of one thing. The official explanation of a van bomb devised by Amrozi and various accomplices is a complete fallacy. It rates at zero on the Truth Scale. The eyewitness reports of the way the second blast occurred, the nature of the burns suffered by victims, the complete vaporisation of scores of people - with no body parts remaining whatsoever, the incredible damage done to reinforced concrete structures, the large crater in the street outside the club, the known blast characteristics of potassium chlorate, and the laws of physics, all combine to totally refute the official truth concocted by the joint Indonesian-Australian investigation team.

In December, 2002, the Australian Federal Police Commissioner visited Bali and praised the investigators. He said, "The Indonesian National Police, from my perspective, have done an outstanding job. It has only been eight weeks since the bombings and already 15 people have been arrested. There are only five suspects outstanding." Jakarta Post Editor, Robert S. Finnegan, an internationally published investigative reporter with 20 years experience did not see it the same way. In an article in the Jakarta Post he had written the following.

*"A creeping sense of foreboding began soon after the forensics people and other investigators (inclusive of Insp. Gen. Made Pastika and his army of hundreds of supposedly top-notch investigators with virtually unlimited resources at their disposal) announced after only a week and a half that they were wrapping up their on-site work and retreating to the labs to analyse their findings. Astounding work, as it must have set a world record for crime scene forensic analysis.

Given the scope of the bombing and the sheer size of the primary and secondary blast areas - where traces from a plethora of different explosive compounds were swabbed from - this was a feat that escaped even the vaunted investigators working the World Trade Center crime scene in New York, who spent nearly a year literally sifting by hand for evidence at the site. It would appear that the teams on Bali possessed far superior skills and techniques...or was there something else responsible for their haste in wrapping up so quickly and then sending the rest of the evidence as quickly as possible to the bottom of the ocean off Bali?"

*"At this point in their investigation National Police Chief Gen, Da'i Bachtiar states for the record that 'traces of a chemical powder used in the bomb' were found in the van allegedly used to transport the large device. Even a cursory examination of the crater and primary site immediately following the bombings would make this statement laughable were it not for the circumstances.

If indeed the Mitsubishi L300 van was used in the large blast, the five-foot deep and twenty-foot wide crater indicates that it would have been completely vaporised, including the engine block which they apparently found intact - along with the victims who instantly vanished. Indeed this begs the question: Where did the investigators obtain this evidence in relation to the crater?

Is it possible that if the van survived the large blast it was because it was parked at the edge of the primary blast zone, packed with small amounts of all the explosives - whose traces were found at the sites - in order to throw off independent investigators?"

The size of the crater in the street outside the Sari Club is an undeniable fact, even though the investigating team quickly constructed a screen around the site and later excavated the hole, then filled in with clean earth. Many witnesses have reported the crater and estimated its size. It was also photographed by many people (see above picture).

Independent analysts have pointed out that there are only two ways that a bomb can cause a crater.

a) It is dropped from an aircraft and penetrates the ground before exploding.

b) It is physically positioned in a sub-surface position, such as a storm drain.

The Omagh car bomb detonated in Northern Ireland in 1998 was composed of a mixture of fertiliser, fuel oil and the high-explosive Semtex. This 500lb device killed 29 people, but it did not cause a crater of any sort. The first atomic bomb dropped from an aircraft and exploded above the city of Hiroshima in 1945, did not cause a crater either. This latter device weighed 4 tons and had an energy equivalent of 12.5 kilotons of TNT, but it simply caused a dome shaped blast wave above ground.

It is clear that there is no possibility that any amount of explosives contained in a parked van could have accounted for the large crater at the main blast site. Only a device that had been placed in a drain or otherwise buried could have been responsible for the large hole in the street. The specialist bomb site investigators from the Indonesian National Police and the Australian Federal Police must have known these facts. They presumably excavated the crater and dumped the soil at sea because the evidence did not fit the story that was being developed as the official truth about the terrible Bali bomb. Once the soil was gone and the hole was filled in with fresh material, nobody would photograph the crater and nobody would test the soil (Why else would it be removed?). Then the world would soon forget that the crater ever existed.

Flaws In The Official Truth About 1012 - The Explosives

Everyone is aware that a bomb generates a blast wave. The force of the blast is dependent on the type of explosive used as well as other factors such as how the explosive is placed or delivered. There are conventions for measuring the speed and force of blast waves. Overpressure is the force that a blast wave exerts over and above normal atmospheric pressure. It is normally stated in pounds per square inch. The velocity of the wave may be expressed in feet per second. The figures relating to the blast waves that particular explosives generate are well known. Every specialist bomb investigator, and many other police and military personnel, know the values off by heart. They don't even have to look them up. These specialists are also well aware of the levels of damage that various overpressure values cause to structures and victims in their path.

When a qualified investigator looks at the aftermath of a bomb explosion the first facts that register in their mind relate to the level of damage evident in surrounding structures and the nature of the injuries suffered by victims of the blast. Even before traces of explosive are found and analysed these indications can tell a specialist what combinations of explosives and what size of device might have been responsible. Any competent forensic scientist with a knowledge of explosives characteristics can also tell, with absolute certainty, what types of device and combinations of explosives could not have done the damage.

It is important to realise that larger amounts of an explosive don't result in a higher overpressure, only in a greater radius of damage. Doubling the amount of a chemical explosive, such as C4, will not result in extra damage near ground zero, it will simply widen the circle of damage that is possible from C4's overpressure. Blast damage is caused in accordance with one of the most important laws of physics, Newton's inverse square law. If one knows the overpressure of the explosive or combination of explosives used, and the radius of the circle of damage, the amount of explosive required can be determined by simple mathematics.

The investigators from the Indonesian and Australian governments were faced with incontrovertible evidence of a massive blast outside the Sari Club. None of the explosives available to local Islamic terrorists could cause the structural damage and injuries, including truly terrible burns that were evident after the blast. The specialist investigators from both countries would have realised this. However they were obviously not permitted to say so. Instead, they made a number of feeble attempts to lay the blame on a primitive low explosive detergent bomb that Amrozi confessed to manufacturing and deploying. This did not fool independent investigators, nor should it have. Nobody with even the most basic understanding of explosives would believe the lies.

Here is what Robert S. Finnegan wrote in the Jakarta Post.

*"Day after day, investigators trotted out different explosives and combinations of explosives purportedly responsible for the blasts. In addition to C4 and RDX there was now TNT, Ammonium Nitrate, HMX, Semtex, PETN, Chlorate and napalm. Everything but the kitchen sink."

*"..had the originators of the napalm theory studied up on the material before opening their mouths they would have known that napalm leaves a sticky, smelly residue on everything, including the victims. This was not in evidence at the blast site or the Sanglah burn ward and morgue, where the burn victims were taken."

*"Let us look at three of the explosives claimed by official investigators to have been used in the bombings, starting with the compound that has the lowest velocity of detonation in feet per second (FPS) which is Potassium Chlorate at 3,500 FPS; compared to 12,000 FPS for Ammonium Nitrate and diesel and finally 27,800 FPS for RDX. In simple terms, at any given distance from ground zero these different explosive compounds will exert pressure in pounds per square inch. Damage to people and structures are a result of this pressure in varying degrees depending on the velocity of detonation. Even if RDX were used, the amount needed to cause the level of destruction in evidence at the crime scene should have been in excess of anything available through even the military, who denied possession of the explosive."

*"With the police claiming (off and on) that Amrozi, Mukhlas and Samudra (who allegedly at one point denied involvement in the Bali bombings) were the perpetrators of the blasts, then why do the official investigators not know EXACTLY the type of device used in the main bombing and its precise composition? To put it quite simply, how can we have a bomber or bombers in the absence of a bomb?"

The overpressure values, in pounds per square inch (PSI), of the blast waves produced by the three explosives that Finnegan refers to are: 2 PSI for Potassium Chlorate, around 4 PSI for Ammonium Nitrate and diesel, and 10 PSI for RDX - the most powerful high-explosive touted in regard to the main device at Kuta beach.

Flaws In The Official Truth About 1012 - Damage To Structures

The known effects of overpressure on structures and people are summarised below.

*At 1 PSI overpressure: Window glass shatters. Light injuries from fragments occur. Persons knocked down by blast wave. Typical houses made uninhabitable.

*At 3 PSI overpressure: Residential structures collapse. Unreinforced masonry or brick walls are destroyed. Rupture of oil storage tanks. Serious injuries are common, fatalities may occur.

*At 5 PSI overpressure: Most buildings collapse, except for concrete reinforced buildings. Injuries are universal, fatalities are widespread.

*At 10 PSI overpressure: Reinforced concrete buildings are severely damaged or demolished. Severe lung and heart damage occurs. Many people are killed.

*At 20 PSI overpressure: Heavily built concrete buildings are severely damaged and demolished. Limbs can be blown off. Fatalities approach 100%.

*At 80 PSI overpressure: Even heavily reinforced concrete is heavily damaged. Skulls are crushed, fatalities are total.

These effects are indicative. In practice physical features such as hills, basements, etc, can shield both people and structures from the blast wave. The first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 created a blast wave with a detonation velocity of almost 100,000 FPS and an overpressure of 600 PSI, yet some buildings in the vicinity of ground zero survived and so did some people, although most later died from radiation sickness.

Why look at overpressure values and blast wave velocities in the nuclear range? Because the probability that the main explosion outside the Sari Club was indeed nuclear has been raised by several independent analysts, and it has also been raised and debated in the Indonesian parliament, as the following report makes clear.

"On Monday 18 November, Indonesian Parliamentary Speaker Amien Rais said he questioned the validity of the police conclusion that Amrozi was the main perpetrator of the Bali bombings which claimed more than 187 lives. Rais was supported by Deputy House Speaker A. M. Fatwa who stated,

"My conscience says that he is not a key actor. I don't believe that Amrozi has the capability to make all kinds of preparations for the bombings, like setting off a kind of nuclear bomb in Bali."

"These pointed observations by two of the most powerful politicians in Indonesia, designed to counter deliberate Australian police and media disinformation about the bombing in Kuta Beach, were then recorded verbatim in the official Indonesian parliamentary transcripts. A wide range of media outlets in Asia and the Middle East reported Rais and Fatwa's comments, which were predictably ignored in Australia and America."

Concrete Was Stripped From Reinforcing Steel


A key indication of the force of the main blast is found in photographic evidence and eyewitness accounts of damage to a reinforced concrete building that was 50 feet from ground zero.

The following quotes and excerpts are relevant to the question of what type of explosive could have caused the Bali Megablast, not only in terms of structural damage but also the fireball, the blinding white flash and the terrible burns.

*"Composition 4 [C4] is pretty dull stuff. Only 1.2 times as powerful as TNT, this plastic explosive gained its reputation primarily because of its flexibility in use. You can shape it any way you like, and stick it wherever you want, including underwater, with little personal risk. ...the giant oily fireball that always accompanies its detonation on television is not real. The giant oily fireball is a special pyrotechnic effect designed specifically to satisfy the 'armchair soldier' lurking inside many television viewers. Real C4 contains no incendiary materials at all ...."

*"Indonesian police explosives expert Colonel Zainuri Lubis, blandly claimed the bomb was composed of 'chlorate, black powder and TNT' , which were 'mixed together'. Colonel Lubis is a genuine explosive expert [unlike Amrozi and Australian Federal Police Director of Counter Terrorism, Tim Morris] who smiled broadly throughout his media interview, and seemed to be deliberately misleading the western media lobby confronting him. For many months now, most Indonesian media and the official Indonesian Parliamentary Records in Jakarta, have recorded the reality of a nuclear blast at Kuta Beach. No details of which have managed to find their way into the western press. So Colonel Zainuri Lubis gave the latest western media pack an idiot composition to pass on to its idiot viewers.

Along with every other explosive expert on earth, colonel Lubis knows very well that you cannot mix sharp potassium chlorate crystals with sensitive black powder particles. ...The split-second 'the bomber' started mixing, the sharp chlorate crystals would create immense friction across the surface of the black powder particles, which would then react violently by either exploding or burning furiously, depending on particle size." However, Amrozi and his 'accomplices' have now 'confessed' to accomplishing the impossible, using the ingredients that the Indonesian police have stated to have comprised the main Bali bomb.

*"The claim that the Bali bomb was made from potassium chlorate [the variant stolen in Java] is pure idiocy. ..Yes you can make a crude weapon from 90% potassium chlorate and 10% paraffin , but it is an incredibly slow and entirely low-explosive. Provided the weapon did not detonate prematurely [a real risk with this unstable compound] four hundred pounds of potassium chlorate and paraffin slurry with a Power Gel initiator might make a mess of Kuta Beach high street, but it could manage little else."

*"So are members of the Australian investigative team now prepared to say exactly which explosives were used to make the Bali bomb? Well, no, they have now fallen atypically silent, apart from making irrelevant and inane remarks about the bombers having 'amazing chemical skills' and 'the ability to build very sophisticated weapons.' And for the first time in many weeks, these same investigators have suddenly decided to wear full-length protective clothing, including face masks and airtight hoods."

*"Yesterday it was discretely announced that the contents of the crater, and other debris from the bomb site would be disposed of far out to sea, as a final step in the 'Hindu cleansing process.' The fact that no Hindu cleansing process known to man requires that nuclear-contaminated waste be buried far out to sea, seems to have escaped media attention.

Late yesterday the diggers started work, frantically removing structures from Kuta high street before they could be subjected to proper investigation by suspicious politicians in Jakarta. The first target of this combined mechanical assault was the building shown in the pictures above with the exposed reinforcing bar, an embarrassing monument perpetually proving the nuclear nature of the blast. Not any more it isn't, with trucks swiftly removing the rubble for tasteful religious burial far out to sea."

*"To cause the actual damage photographed at the crime scene in Bali, we must have a weapon with a compound yield and velocity of detonation fast enough to ensure one million pounds per square inch of retained pressure fifty feet from ground zero. There is only one weapon in the world compact enough to perform this staggering trick. A micro nuke..."

Similarities To Hiroshima- Blast And Searing Burns

Both in terms of structural damage and the horrendous nature of the burns and injuries suffered by victims and survivors alike, there are strong similarities between the Bali Megablast and the Hiroshima atomic bomb blast of 1945.

None of the young Australians who were in KutaBeach at the time of the 1012 atrocity would have seen, first hand, the effects of the nuclear blasts in Japan. They were not even conceived at the time of World War II. Sadly, these young Australians have now seen something that is extraordinarily similar. Just as they are the offspring of those who fought in the conflict that spawned the first atomic attack, some 57 years ago, the likely mini-nuke exploded at Kuta Beach would be a descendent of the original 'Little Boy'. That 'weapon' killed 140,000 civilians, many of them women and children, at the time of the cruel attack. The radiation legacy of Little Boy was then responsible for the deaths of as many innocents again, during the years of torment that followed its dreadful blast.

What this says, is that little has been learnt since 1945. Precisely executed military operations are still slaughtering wonderful young people, those who stood, in 2002, at the threshold of a magical new age of abundance and enlightenment. Militarists are still deploying wicked devices that are based on the science of Albert Einstein, and the subsequent work done at Los Alamos by people who were rightly fearful about the monstrous weaponry they were pioneering.

Einstein was a sane, compassionate man. He must surely be turning in his grave in despair of the persistent inhumanity and insanity of central government 'leaders', with their taker based mindsets, who keep repeating the same mistakes, year upon year, without remorse or even an understanding that what they do is against the teachings of every religion ever adopted by members of the human race. Except one. The religion of power and control achieved through a combination of artificial scarcity and brutal force. It's called industrial capitalism, and like the A Bomb, it was perfected if not invented, by Uncle Sam.

The bomb dropped on Hiroshima was a clumsy, dirty contraption compared to the probable mini-nuke detonated in a storm drain in Bali. Little Boy had devastating power, far more than the device used at Bali. If a Little Boy had been dropped there much more of the island would have been badly damaged. The vicinity of Kuta Beach would have been razed clean, except for a few heavily built reinforced concrete buildings, like the one in the stripped reinforcing photo above.However, the blast characteristics would be similar to those of the modern back-pack mini-nuke of the present day.

The first of the 'Bali or Hiroshima?' images above is a scene from Hiroshima. The second 'Bali or Hiroshima?' picture is of damage done in Bali.

Here is one interpretation of what the Bali Megablast was like.

*"An unseen circuit closed and a primer fired, then one millionth of a single second later, a terrible fireball formed under the street. Less than six inches in diameter and burning at a staggering 300,000 degrees centigrade, the fireball was a perfect shimmering sphere, made possible by 99.78% Plutonium 239. ...Five microseconds passed while this fission monster from hell expanded, then the already cooling fireball tore its angry way out into the street above, vaporising all victims standing within thirty feet while simultaneously spreading two tons of deadly microscopic roadbed shrapnel in a lethal arc across Kuta Beach. Every survivor standing in direct line-of-sight of its awesome ultraviolet emission received terrible flash burns, the like of which three eminent Australian burns surgeons would later claim on TV they 'had never seen before.'

Less than ten-millionths of a second after the monster achieved critical mass, its searing thermal wave set fire to twenty-seven buildings in the immediate area, and spontaneously ignited automobiles parked two blocks away from ground zero. "

Author's Note:
The above passage is taken from the web site of an author who has done valuable research and provided important commentary on the Bali Megablast and other topics such as 911. However, I am not persuaded by this individual's evidence regarding the perpetrators of the Bali atrocity. For this reason speculative assertions that it was all put together by Zionists intent on ruling the world, have been omitted from the excerpts from that site. In my considered view the available authentication for the Zionists theory is low, probably no more than step 2 on the Truth Scale. Israel would seem to have its hands full in its own region, and there is no history of it having made any attempt to gain political and economic dominance in Asia. On the other hand there is ample evidence that the US has done so in Indonesia and surrounding countries for many decades. Thus, I consider that the Bali culprits are most likely to have been the CIA, working with high-level Indonesian military and political interests, and strongly aided and supported by super-fascists in Australia at the highest levels of the government and media. Presently, this likelihood is assessed as step 6 on the Truth Scale.

Flaws In The Official Truth About 1012 - The Power Failure [171]
The type of bomb that Amrozi is alleged to have built would not affect the power in Kuta Beach. At least, not unless it was detonated in a sub-station instead of a van parked in the set-down area outside the Sari Club. But there was a power outage. It was widespread, and it occurred between the first and second blasts. That is, after the bomb in Paddy's Bar and immediately before the main blast outside the Sari Club. Remember what one eyewitness described.

*"I got about 30 meters down the street and then I heard one blast and I thought, 'What was that?'

Then the power cut...all the power went out. I didn't think bomb. I didn't think anything at that stage.

And then, probably, I'd say two seconds later, there was just the huge flash, and I was just covered in glass, put on the ground, and it just started...it was like hell on earth."

The above description was not made by any old Australian tourist in Kuta Beach that night. It was a first-hand report by an Australian Army Officer, Captain Rodney Cocks. He was on leave in Bali from a posting as a UNMO in East Timor. Besides being a highly credible witness in respect of the sequence of events, Captain Cocks happens to have received specialist explosives training in the Australian army. In describing the injuries, the blast and the crater it left in the street, Captain Cocks said the following.

*"I've done demolitions courses with the Army and it was bigger than anything I've ever blown up in my time, and I've done a bit."

*"I was very lucky, I think I got a few cuts on my feet but nothing major. I was wearing shorts, T-shirt and thongs at the time. I consider myself one of the luckiest people alive, I really do."

*"By the time I picked myself up there were already people moving out away from the scene. I picked one girl up there - she had burns all over her body, so I grabbed her. I later heard she'd been assessed as having burns to 95% of her body and that she hadn't survived her injuries"

*"We regrouped. got our people, helped the people we could, which, you know, was just bloody impossible, there were just so many people injured."

*"I grabbed my phone, my head torch, my passport and my Army ID. The other guys did as well. From there..we started treating other people. At that stage I came across an Australian Army sergeant from 1RAR, he was on leave from Butterworth. He was pretty badly injured and we got him off to hospital and later evacuated back to Townsville."

*Of the scene at the hospital he said:

*"That was just an absolute nightmare. There's just bodies everywhere, blood everywhere, just death and destruction everywhere and just so many Australians..."

*Of the morgue:

*"The bodies were just...the floor was littered with burnt corpses. it was just awful...some of these bodies you couldn't tell, you know, whether they were male of female, young, old, Indonesian, Australian..."

*Of the scene of the blast, next morning:

*"You need a lot of bang to get through and make that sort of hole. That second bomb was huge."

Captain Cocks' account of the events that night is vitally important for more reasons than his military training and ability to assess explosives damage. His eye-witness record of the power cut just prior to the main blast gives a clear indication of the nature of the weapon. When a nuclear device goes critical, before it explodes, a Source Region Electromagnetic Pulse [SREMP] is emitted. The resultant overload of electrical grids and circuits in the region of the device is one of its telltale signatures, along with the nature of the blast damage and the horrific flash and radiation burns inflicted on victims. The following excerpts are from sources that describe the electromagnetic effects of a nuclear weapon.

*"The pulse travels through all mediums at the speed of light."

*"Enormous induced electric currents are generated in wires, antennas and metal objects....Commercial electrical grids are immense EMP antennas and would be subjected to voltage surges far exceeding those generated by lightning, and over vastly greater areas."

The fact that Captain Cocks' account of the power failure in Kuta Beach seconds before the megablast outside the Sari Club appeared on the front page of the Australian Army Newspaper and on the Australian Army web site, was not what someone in Canberra wanted. It is reported that the Army was instructed to remove the article, with its description of an SREMP effect given by a credible Army officer, from the Army web site, on ministerial orders. Apparently, it was duly removed but reinstated on the countermanding order of a very senior officer. As of the time of researching this matter, August 2003, the account by Captain Cocks was still to be found on the official Australian Army web site, but it was by then in the archives area.

As for Captain Cocks, he was without doubt one of the luckiest men on the street on the night of the Bali Mini-Nuke atrocity. By chance, it appears that when he left Paddy's Bar and walked towards an Internet Cafe, he positioned himself in the 'null zone' below the rising diagonal blast vector of the bomb in the storm drain. This freakish timing could have saved him from the searing white flash that followed the SREMP blackout as a probable mini-nuke went critical below the surface of the street. Fate preserved the life of a man who was not only qualified to assist the victims of the blast, but to provide authentic and documented evidence of the SREMP effect, and thus of the true nature of the main device.

This was not a crude detergent van bomb, as both the Indonesian and Australian investigators have claimed. It seems to have been a truly terrible contraption that was directly descended form the 'Little Boy' atomic weapon that the US dropped on the women and children of Hiroshima, in 1945.

Related:

Rudd firm on capital punishment stance


Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the fact that he backs the death penalty for the Bali bombers in Indonesia does not signal any change in his opposition to capital punishment in Australia.

[What a contradiction in terms?]

Mr Rudd says the three men on death row in Indonesia over the bombings that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians, are cowards and mass murderers who deserve the justice that will be delivered to them.

[Wrong again: The convicted Bali bombers did not have the means to create such a bomb. There are reports that in one Balinese kampong that provided labour to the clubs in Kuta Beach, seven empty coffins were buried, because there were no identifiable remains of the missing workers. It was as if they had been vaporised. Scores of people, mainly locals, are thought to have disappeared without trace.] Australia's Terrorism Wake Up Call.

Friday, 3 October 2008

Death penalty ban 'would help save Bali 9'

A Sydney Federal Labor backbencher says a permanent Commonwealth ban on the death penalty will help the campaign to get Australians off death row in Bali.

The member for Werriwa, Chris Hayes, says current legislation means the death penalty could be reintroduced by the states.

He has moved a notice of motion in Federal Parliament to stop that happening.

Mr Hayes says it was the plight of the convicted drug smuggler, Scott Rush, that motivated him to action.

"What parent of an 18-year-old hasn't got concerns about the people their child mixes with or sometimes associates with?," he said.

Scott Rush and two other Australians, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, face the death by firing squad in Indonesia.

The three Australians are members of the so-called Bali nine, who were caught trying to smuggle more than 8.2 kilograms of heroin from the resort island of Bali to Australia in 2005.

Chris Hayes says his bill also sends a clear message that Australia opposes the death penalty, increasing the diplomatic pressure on Indonesia.

It will be debated when Parliament resumes the week after next.

Rudd firm on capital punishment stance

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the fact that he backs the death penalty for the Bali bombers in Indonesia does not signal any change in his opposition to capital punishment in Australia.

[What a contradiction in terms?]

Mr Rudd says the three men on death row in Indonesia over the bombings that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians, are cowards and mass murderers who deserve the justice that will be delivered to them.

[Wrong again: The convicted Bali bombers did not have the means to create such a bomb. There are reports that in one Balinese kampong that provided labour to the clubs in Kuta Beach, seven empty coffins were buried, because there were no identifiable remains of the missing workers. It was as if they had been vaporised. Scores of people, mainly locals, are thought to have disappeared without trace.] Australia's Terrorism Wake Up Call.

He says the Bali bombers are subject to the Indonesian system, but he has said he does not believe in the death penalty in Australia or for Australians in other nations.

"That's the view of the Liberals, that's the view of the Australian Labor Party and that'll be the case into the future as well," he said.

"Also when it comes to Australians convicted of sentences abroad, both Mr Howard when he was prime minister and myself since becoming Prime Minister, we regularly intervene with foreign countries arguing the case for clemency for Australians convicted abroad."

Quote: Clearly Kevin Rudd is lost on this one. How can he not see that all people are equal? And have been created equal - no matter where they are from? How can any person create this dilemma for themselves? For himself? For our people? Basically any other foreign country would take that as an approval to execute an Australian citizen.

Related:

Push for clear line on death penalty
PRESSURE is mounting on the Rudd Government from the Labor back bench to adopt a tougher stand against the death penalty.

I had no choice, says courier facing death
AN AUSTRALIAN sentenced to death in Vietnam this week for heroin trafficking told officials she was forced into the crime to pay off her husband's gambling debts.

'Bali nine' trio's death sentences overturned
Three 'Bali nine' members still face the death penalty, including the group's ringleaders, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, as well as Rush, the only drug mule still sentenced to death.

Sunday, 22 June 2008

Corby case exploited by Channel Nine


Exploited by Channel Nine ... Schapelle Corby.

DRUG runner Schapelle Corby is on suicide watch in hospital. The 30-year-old lost 12kilograms in four weeks and suffered hallucinations and paranoia following the failure of her final appeal, doctors and her mother revealed yesterday.

Corby had to be taken from Bali's Kerobokan jail on Friday to the international wing of Sanglah hospital in Denpasar suffering depression.

Kerobokan prison doctor Agus Hartawan said: "We are concerned about her condition. She has deteriorated in the past few days, she gets depressed and depressed.

"She is losing weight. She is experiencing hallucinations and paranoia. Not because she is consuming any drug, but because of her emotional state - it's nothing physical."

Her mother, Rosleigh Rose, said: "It's depression. Everything has caught up with her."

Corby's father, Michael, died from cancer in January; her step-father, Greg, died from the same disease last year; she lost her final appeal in March; and her sister, Mercedes, was unable to visit while contesting her defamation case against Channel Seven.

"I don't know if she has lost any more weight but she is very thin - she is five feet, two inches [157centimetres] tall and she weighs 45kilograms," Ms Rose said.

"She has lost hope. She asks me how I can still have hope but I have to believe that there will be justice."

Corby was placed on anti-depressants two weeks ago. The paranoia and hallucinations had since worsened, prompting Dr Hartawan to bring in psychiatrist Lely Setyawati, who ordered the high-profile prisoner be hospitalised.

Dr Setyawati was concerned Corby would attempt suicide. She said her condition was "dangerous to her and to others" and recommended she be hospitalised indefinitely.

"There are many conditions, many stresses in her environment. It is serious," Dr Setyawati said yesterday.

Two police guards and two police officers are taking shifts guarding her in hospital.

Corby had been medicated since her hospital admission. It could take weeks for her condition to improve enough for her to be released from hospital.

Corby's lawyer, Erwin Siregar, believed she was depressed following the failure in March of her challenge in Indonesia's supreme court to her 20-year sentence for drug smuggling.

Kerobokan prison head of security Maliki said: "Erwin Siregar has told her about the judicial review rejection. Since then she's had trouble sleeping and didn't want to eat. That condition has made her very stressed."

Corby's elder sister, Mercedes, was by her side yesterday in the new hospital wing.

"When Mercedes was [in Australia] Schapelle deteriorated so much, but the Australian consulate didn't even tell me," Ms Rose said. "I had to fly in to get her a medical check. I also told the Australian consul that 'you are here to look after Australians, so do your effing job, mate'.

"She had lost 12kilos in four weeks and was just so depressed and no one gave me a call."

Ms Rose plans to fly to Bali this week.

Corby's hospitalisation comes as Channel Nine screens the first of a two-part, four-hour documentary tonight called Schapelle Corby: The Hidden Truth which the network claims will "challenge, indeed explode" the myths of her case.

Ms Rose was not worried about missing the documentary.

"I don't know if I'll watch it," she said. "I mean … what's it going to do? We'll just sit around the table and talk while all the current affairs shows are on … it's just all rubbish."

The program's creator Janine Hosking said she was disappointed by reports Corby family lawyers were considering legal action once Hidden Truth goes to air. "I admire many aspects of them actually, but I can't make the film that only the Corbys want you to see."

Quote: The low life vultures at Channel Nine have chosen to exploit prisoners' overseas just like the low life vultures at Channel Seven. If Channel Nine should defame Schapelle's family, lie or even make it worse for Schapelle then they should be sued for defamation. When are these public broadcasters to have their licences reviewed? Not satisfied to convict people using trial by media tactics but now endless lies and exploitation of these prisoners' suffering. Yet the true story written by Schapelle Corby herself cannot be sold. It is obviously a symptom of the broken down system that these corporate media vultures are then allowed to prey on the downtrodden and manipulate these people better because their story is hidden and so the rummers overtake the real truth. How much money do corporations want to make because of someone's misery? Does that make it worse for the prisoner? Why should prisoners' pay corporations?

Related:

Corbys' mother gets defamation payout
The mother of Schapelle and Mercedes Corby, Roseleigh Rose, has received a confidential payout from Channel Seven in settlement of her complaint she was defamed by its Today Tonight program.

Channel Seven guilty in Corby defamation
A Supreme Court jury has found Channel Seven guilty of defamation against Mercedes Corby.

Corby informant paid $120,000 cash, court told

A former friend of Schapelle Corby was paid "something like" $120,000 in cash by Today Tonight for a fabricated story, a defamation jury heard today.

Corby loses sentence appeal
Convicted Australian drug smuggler Schapelle Corby has lost a final appeal to have her jail sentence reduced.

Corby may serve 9 more years before transfer: Indonesia
Convicted cannabis smuggler Corby has served less than four years of a 20-year sentence.

Jail work could cut Corby's sentence
THE convicted drug trafficker Schapelle Corby may be eligible for a prison job that could shave years off the 20-year sentence she is serving in an Indonesian jail.

Thursday, 22 May 2008

Australian fisherman jailed in Bali

An Australian fisherman has been jailed for six months for heroin use on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

Franklin Brett Maxwell, 45, of Darwin, is expected to be released in July, following his arrest in January this year.

Denpasar District Court today found him "officially and convincingly guilty" of drug use, which had carried a maximum penalty of four years' imprisonment.

A second charge of drug possession, which carried a 10-year jail term, was dropped.

Maxwell was arrested in January after police, acting on a tip-off, found 0.4 grams of heroin inside his motorcycle helmet in Kuta.

He admitted buying the drug from a woman for 800,000 rupiah (about $88).

Judge Sigit Sutanto described Maxwell as a "victim" of drug addiction for 20 years.

"The defendant is actually a victim and has tried hard to be cured, but it's not over yet," Judge Sutanto said.

He said Maxwell's sentence was reduced because he admitted the crime and had no previous convictions.

Maxwell is one of three Australians who have been handed short jail terms this month for recent drug offences in Bali.

Tuesday, 6 May 2008

Aust 'drug addict' jailed in Indonesia

An Australian tourist has been sentenced to three months in prison after he was found guilty of drug use by a Bali court.

Avinash Sundhahar, 24, was arrested in a nightclub car park in the popular tourist district of Kuta in February after "receiving" 0.3 grams of methamphetamine, commonly known as speed.

"The defendant has been proven legally and convincingly to have received a forbidden substance for his personal use as an addict and the defendant has been sentenced to three months in jail," the head of the panel of judges, Made Seraman, told Denpasar district court.

The court found that Sundhahar, who said he had been a methamphetamine addict for one year, had been given the drug minutes before his arrest.

Jail terms in Indonesia are often significantly lighter for drug users who can prove they are addicts. Addicts can in theory legally obtain drugs if they register with authorities.

Sundhahar's lawyer, Gede Sudiantara, said his client accepted the court's verdict.

Tuesday, 29 April 2008

Corby informant paid $120,000 cash, court told


A former friend of Schapelle Corby was paid "something like" $120,000 in cash by Today Tonight for a fabricated story, a defamation jury heard today.

Jodie Power was also given an all-expenses paid holiday to Canada with her two children by the current affairs show, Stuart Littlemore QCF told the NSW Supreme Court.

A defamation case brought by Mercedes Corby, sister of the jailed Schapelle Corby, opened this morning.

In his address to the jury of three men and one woman, Mr Littlemore, QC, representing Mercedes Corby, said that Today Tonight's presenter Anna Coren, reporter Bryan Seymour and the supposed informant Jodie Power had been involved in a conspiracy to fabricate an untrue story in February last year.

He said that between them they had presented Mercedes Corby, an ordinary Australian, with nothing to answer for other than being Schapelle's sister as "a drug smuggler".

Mr Littlemore said that Ms Coren and Mr Seymour had conspired to create "the most sensational program they could buy, telling lies".

He said the program had gone to air in Sydney, and the network had broadcast it all over Australia. The story had been picked up by Sky News and Ms Coren had promoted the program on 2day FM.

Mr Littlemore said Ms Power had been paid "something like $120,000 in cash" and had an all expenses paid holiday to Canada with her two children.

But Mr Littlemore said Ms Power hated Mercedes Corby, who had once been her best friend and she had celebrity status from appearing on television. She had been moved by revenge, he said.

Mr Littlemore said the unfortunate fact was that Ms Power had her own "personal problem with drugs".

The case continues today.

Related:

Corby loses sentence appeal
Convicted Australian drug smuggler Schapelle Corby has lost a final appeal to have her jail sentence reduced.

Corby may serve 9 more years before transfer: Indonesia
Convicted cannabis smuggler Corby has served less than four years of a 20-year sentence.

Jail work could cut Corby's sentence
THE convicted drug trafficker Schapelle Corby may be eligible for a prison job that could shave years off the 20-year sentence she is serving in an Indonesian jail.

Wednesday, 23 April 2008

Jail work could cut Corby's sentence


Schapelle Corby, left, and Renee Lawrence during a ceremony inside Kerobokan prison in Denpasar.

THE convicted drug trafficker Schapelle Corby may be eligible for a prison job that could shave years off the 20-year sentence she is serving in an Indonesian jail.

The departing head of Bali's Kerobokan Prison, Ilham Djaya, said yesterday Corby should be made an inmates' leader, a role that could cut 11 months a year from her sentence. Corby, who last month lost her final appeal against her sentence, was a "very good" prisoner, Mr Djaya said.

He said she should be considered for the rank of "tamping", a prisoners' supervisor, or the role of "pemuka", who oversees those with the rank of tamping.

Mr Djaya offered his support for Corby despite the former Gold Coast beauty student's controversial stint at Kerobokan.

Since her detention almost four years ago for cannabis smuggling, Corby has written a book describing the prison as a "disgusting slum". She missed out on a sentence remission last year after she was found with a mobile phone in her cell.

Corby recently denied reports aired on Australian television that she had been allowed out of prison to dine with her sister at a Bali restaurant.

Mr Djaya praised Corby and the heroin smuggler Renae Lawrence, who is also serving a 20-year term.

"Corby has a job gathering handicrafts from prisoners, like from sewing and knitting class. She has learnt everything," Mr Djaya said. "The handicrafts collected by Corby are then collected by the Buddhist Association to be sold in the market."

He said the role of pemuka would be good for a prisoner serving a lengthy sentence. "For a long-term prisoner like Renae or Corby it would be very good to be a pemuka," he said.

Mr Djaya described Lawrence as extraordinary. "She does her jobs very well," he said, adding that Lawrence had performed tasks such as fixing taps and cleaning. "Even the sewer, she is willing to clean it."

Mr Djaya was formally replaced yesterday by the incoming prison governor, Yon Suharyono, at a ceremony inside the prison complex.

Corby's lawyer, Erwin Siregar, who attended the prison ceremony, told reporters he had yet to decide whether to seek clemency for Corby from Indonesia's President. He was also still considering whether to seek another final appeal, even though Indonesian law makes no provision for this.

Friday, 28 March 2008

Corby loses sentence appeal


Convicted Australian drug smuggler Schapelle Corby has lost a final appeal to have her jail sentence reduced.

Indonesia's Supreme Court has ruled that the original 20-year jail sentence should stand.

Corby is serving the sentence at Kerobokan jail in Bali after more than four kilograms of marijuana was found in her bodyboard bag at Denpasar Airport in 2004.

Her best hope for an early return home may be through a prisoner transfer treaty being negotiated with Indonesia.