The jail, the news and the Bali expats

In my imagination Solutions involve lots of brown envelopes going to a hierachy of people.
Can’t belive westerners never learn to leave the drugs alone in these southeast Asian countries.

I agree Chris, but they still plea & beg innocence!!!

Yeah Chris you are right that is exactly the game as confirmed to me by an inmate who I visited last year. It all has to be bought and the amounts of money chnaging hands for sentence reductions are really large. I can see why it attracts Inodonesians as a cottage industry. Believe me they are not putting people in there to be rehabilitated. Re dope : when you consider tobacco kills over 400,000 Indonesians one can see huge hypocrisy, but then the spin-offs for those with a vested interest who can benefit from this corruption are big. It won’t change in the short term so stay clear of the stuff and be careful you are not set-up by someone planting something - happens..

The guy I talked too was quite unfront and said he was a witness to a drugs transaction. He saw his mate hand something to someone else but played no part in it. He was considered an accomplice and said from thatp oint on it was up to him to prove his innocence, which going back to what Jonathan said, isn’t going to happen.

Looking forward to reading your article on your visit with Schapelle.

Hi Nick,

Nick it would be very intersting if you could try and get an interview with one of the Bali nine. Second thoughts Nick, better still with the mules out ou the Bali nine. I was doing a lot of reading on a site called Foreign Prisoners Support yesterday whilst in work ( i know some job int it ) I recommend Bali bloggers all check this site out. When you get on to the site click on Experiences and you will get a list of people experiences and how they end up locked up in a filthy overcrowded cell with little hope of release for years. It is fascinating reading and by God does it put a chill through you when you think of all the people out there who visit South Asian countries with a liberal attitude towards drugs.
Tracey i know you feel strongly that if you do the crime you should do the time, but there in some of these countries the prisoners are treated worse than animals. It puzzles me how people can get involved when the penalties are so severe. The trouble is people are offered the chance to make a quick buck, which is often the case with the mules (people who bring back the drugs for the big players for a fixed fee of money which is often a tiny percentage of what they atre actually carrying strapped to their bodies) who are the ones who usually end up caught and doing the time while the big boys get off. I actually wrote to a bloke from Australia who was caught in Thailand with $200 Dollars of dodgey Travellers cheques. It took 2.5 yrs to reach court where he was given 6 years. He done nearly 5 of those in the notorious Bangcock Hilton before being released a year early because of ill health. The bloke went in there a strapping healthy young 21 years of age and left there half of his original weight and with no teeth after having suffered from T.B. which he got whilst inside. Now thats what i call an unfair case when you think that rapists and pedos do less than five years in a lot of Western countries. I know a lot of peoples view is that if you are caught with drugs then you deserve all you get. Yes there are plenty of people who deserve everythinh they get in terms of the sentence handed down, but heh i will tell you what there are plenty of people who have been bloody naieve and stuped and before they know it thaet are incarneted in some filthy prison thousands of miles from home with little chance of frequent family visits. Also there are the cases of entrapment where people are set up in a sting like operation. I could go on and on but i would rather readers have a godd look at the site thate can be found doing a search under
Foreign Prisoners Support.

Regards Mark

To all who are not sure
Having lived in SE Aisa I know it is comman practice to use other peoples baggage to move drugs, and why take weed into a country where the value is a fraction of that in Australia not to mention its easier to sell here and less risk.The culture of these countries is not to lose face and to find anyone “not guilty” they believe, is a reflection on them no matter what the evidence says. It ok to say don’t carry drugs to these coutries but it better not to travel there at all, now i know not all will agree untill they in up where schapelle is for something they dudn’t do

Judge Linton Sirait.
I hope he never sleeps at night and that if he has children I WISH THIS UPON THEM or his relatives for what he has done to Schapelle Corby.
There was NO PROOF of her being guilty.

I hope the people who planted the drugs were watching and WISH UPON THEM the same in getting caught just to know what it feels like.