Video New doco reveals Corby's team lied

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1 min
23 Jun 2008
3 News NZ

A new Australian documentary has revealed that convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby's defence team lied, when they claimed Brisbane baggage handlers planted marijuana in her boogie board case.

Former foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer has admitted that he told lawyers for Schapelle Corby, who is on suicide watch in a Bali hospital, to consider that her brother may have been involved in the foiled drug-smuggling attempt.

Mr Downer made the admission after Corby's dumped Australian lawyer, Robin Tampoe, told a documentary he had confected her initial defence that Australian baggage-handlers had planted 4.2kg of marijuana in her bodyboard bag.

Corby, arrested at Denpasar airport in October 2004, was jailed for 20 years after a Bali court dismissed Mr Tampoe's arguments that the drugs had been planted in the bag before she left Australia.

Mr Downer yesterday said Mr Tampoe's admission, in a two-part documentary, would not go down well with Indonesian authorities.

"To say that they have been pushing a line in the court which they now admit is not true is a very damaging thing to do," he said.

After dealing with the defence team as foreign minister, Mr Downer, who does not appear in the documentary, Schapelle Corby: The Hidden Truth, yesterday confirmed he had raised the prospect of involvement of her younger half-brother, James Sioeli Kisina, who travelled with her on the ill-fated flight.

"I did ask them about the brother and whether there was any family involvement but I only asked them," he said.

"I mean, I just simply didn't know, and to this very day Schapelle Corby's been convicted by the court - I didn't know anything more than the evidence that's been presented to the court."

In 2006, it was revealed that Mr Kisina, now 20, was directly linked by Queensland police to the drug run into Bali.

Senior Queensland detectives made the allegations against him in court documents after he was arrested for allegedly leading a home invasion in Brisbane's south.

"He (Mr Kisina) is suspected of some involvement in the exportation of cannabis for which his sister has received a 20-year imprisonment sentence," the affidavit says, sworn by arresting officer Detective Sergeant Dean Godfrey.

Mr Kisina carried the bag to the Customs desk, but when asked by officials if it was his, Corby interrupted and claimed ownership.

Schapelle Corby, 30, is on suicide watch in a Denpasar hospital after suffering depression in Kerobokan.


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