admin

I was hoping you could outline the main points of your theory in this thread djwolf. That way we have a starting point and hopefully a little more clarity.

If you could just keep it brief as possible and in concise note form that would be terrific.

thanks alot

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possum

Come on Wolfy...

possum needs simple explanations too... your posts are a bit "too much information" for my little brain...

I would like to see your theory too - in point form - if you please.

Not all of us here are as well read and studied as yourself and if you want us all to be better educated then you need to come down to my/our/others level too

DJ Wolf

Just imagine if a detective found a knife covered with bloody fingerprints lying next to the dead bloody body of a woman. At this point we don't know if the woman was murdered. It could well have been some kind of accident. Perhaps the woman was choking to death and the knife was used in an attempt to perform an emergency tracheotomy.

However, the policeman doesn't walk in and see the blood spattering on the wall and say this looks like a tracheotomy and work his way up the criminal ladder; he starts with the possibility of murder and works his way down through suicide and then finally tests the evidence for accidental death.

If the policeman finds evidence for murder he accuses the prime suspect of murder. This doesn't mean that the prime suspect is guilty. It simply means that the prime suspect has a case to answer and it is a court and not the accusers who will prove the case.

If I accuse the Bali Police of planting the drugs I'm not saying they are guilty nor do I have to prove it. But I refuse to assume that their unfair treatment of Schapelle where evidence that would have cleared her was destroyed or denied her was due to their incompetence or inexperience. Why should any of us who support Schapelle give them the benefit of the doubt so that they do not have to explain their actions? All I have to do is show that there is just cause to be suspicious. Maybe it only looked like they planted the drugs when in fact all they are guilty of is controlling the evidence to convict someone they knew to be innocent.

1. It is not the job of the police in any nation that adheres to the rule of law to decide which evidence will and will not be collected. It is the job of the police to collect all the evidence so that later, with the benefit of planning and investigation, the prosecutor and/or the government can sift through the evidence so that they may decide what charges the evidence supports and what evidence will be used in court to prove those charges. Anyone who claims that the police had the right to determine what evidence would be collected has no understanding of the role of police in a democratic state. If the police had this right then it is proven that the prosecutor was not determining the prosecution or its strategy and the free and autonomous decisions of the judges and the defence lawyers are tainted and in doubt.

2. According to the prosecution, the police who first arrived on the scene had no prior knowledge of the drugs and were therefore, suprised and unprepared for the find. If they were the first to know of the drugs when were they informed by the prosecutor that fingerprint evidence would not be required? If they believed Schapelle was guilty (as is reasonable to assume) why didn't they believe that they were destroying Schapelle's fingerprints thereby destroying proof of her guilt? That they laughed demonstrated that they understood the consequences of their actions. Obviously, they saw no possibility of a reprimand for destroying the prosecution's evidence but rather thought it was funny that they were using Schapelle as a witness to establish when their fingerprints first appeared on the bag.

3. Since the police were suprised and unprepared and Schapelle was caught with the drugs in her possession it is not reasonable for the police to have assumed that Schapelle was innocent regardless of her tears and protests. Therefore, if the police believed her to be guilty they would assume that ALL the evidence that could be collected would prove her guilty. The customs officer had taken the four pieces of luggage to the luggage scales because he believed that Schapelle was guilty and that the weight of these four bags would total 4 Kg lighter than than the figure listed on Schapelle's ticket - 65Kg. He was countermanded by officers of the Bali Police who did not want this evidence to exist and for the next eight hours these four bags sat next to the scales, unweighed. The response of the Bali Police as to why they didn't weigh the luggage was that it was 'unnecessary'. Since weighing the luggage alledgedly would prove that not only did Schapelle have possession of the marijuana in Bali but that she also had possession of the drugs before departing from Brisbane, this would be the most undeniable evidence apart from the marijuana itself. The truth is that if they thought Schapelle was guilty, wild horses couldn't stop them from weighing the bags and this point alone demands an enquiry.

4. We have testimony as to the character of the Bali Police who were involved in this case. Instead of confronting her with undeniable evidence that could have been gathered (see points 2 and 3) and therefore giving her no choice but to confess, they chose to trick her into signing a confession written in Indonesian and lied about its contents. Had Schapelle signed this she would have stated that she was guilty in a language she did not speak while still maintaining her innocence. Any democratic court in the world would throw this evidence out and charge those police involved with fraud, obstruction of justice and violations of human rights. Yet these police did this in the knowledge that the court would find no fault in it. The police then tried to trick her into signing a receipt for her possessions where "all plastic containers" was included. This persistant deceit demonstrates conclusively that they did require additional evidence and that the statement that weighing the four pieces of luggage was 'unnecessary' was a blatant lie. For anyone who argues that the Bali Police would not plant the drugs are in opposition to Schapelle's own testimony when she described how they planted a small bag of narcotics onto her chair. She would have automatically put her fingers on it (clearing a space with our hand is a natural part of sitting down) had it not been for the unwitting actions of her niece in picking up the bag first. When they could not frame her for the second piece of evidence, they chose the hearsay evidence of a customs officer who lied that Schapelle had said: "the marijuana is mine".

There's the first four to argue and debate on. Only about 30 to go.

preludefan

dude- ever thought of being a writer?
that was an awesome explanation- i mean my beliefs are different to yours but i cant deny that you are a fantastic writer/poster!

admin

Holy heck man I am going to have to wake up before I can digest all this. Summary? lol

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admin

Ok at this point I totally agree with you. Massive incompetence. No doubt about it. Should they explain their actions? Oh yeah you better believe they should is my response to that!



The free and autonomous decisions of the judges and of the defence are tainted and in doubt because the police didnt collect all the evidence? If thats what you are saying and that is the law then that surely is grounds for appeal and what Schapelle's lawyers would be raising in this appeal?

Oh man this is a MASSIVE stretch of the imagination. By the time the police had arrived the dope had already been handled by alot of people. I remember seeing them all on tv with my own eyes. Was everyone laughing? They sure were but its because Indonesians laugh at everything. If you have spent time in Indonesia you will know this. Indonesians rarely get super worked up about anything. That they laughed does not mean they understood the consequences of their actions. How could they possibly think anything other than Schapelle was guilty.

In my opinion I cant buy any of that sorry.

3. Since the police were suprised and unprepared and Schapelle was caught with the drugs in her possession it is not reasonable for the police to have assumed that Schapelle was innocent regardless of her tears and protests. Therefore, if the police believed her to be guilty they would assume that ALL the evidence that could be collected would prove her guilty. The customs officer had taken the four pieces of luggage to the luggage scales because he believed that Schapelle was guilty and that the weight of these four bags would total 4 Kg lighter than than the figure listed on Schapelle's ticket - 65Kg. He was countermanded by officers of the Bali Police who did not want this evidence to exist and for the next eight hours these four bags sat next to the scales, unweighed. The response of the Bali Police as to why they didn't weigh the luggage was that it was 'unnecessary'. Since weighing the luggage alledgedly would prove that not only did Schapelle have possession of the marijuana in Bali but that she also had possession of the drugs before departing from Brisbane, this would be the most undeniable evidence apart from the marijuana itself. The truth is that if they thought Schapelle was guilty, wild horses couldn't stop them from weighing the bags and this point alone demands an enquiry.

You cant possibly believe the police didnt know about the dope when they arrived at the airport? It would have spread like wildfire!! You think they were called to the airport but noone mentioned the humungous bag of pot in the preety aussie girls bag? Not a chance.

You almost make it sound like they deliberately didnt weigh the baggage. How do we know the baggage sat beside the scales and was deliberatly not weighed for 8 hours. More to the point how do we know why they didnt weight the luggage. I believe it was simple incompetence that led to the baggage not being weighed. Maybe they thought weighing the bagagge was not important. They knew they hadnt put the dope in her bag so when they weighed it it would be the same as in brisbane. I suggest it was not a big deal to weigh it because they didnt think it was important. SHOULD they have weighed it? Oh man you better beleive that too. The weight of the bagagge is one of the few things that could have saved Schapelle. I could see how you could argue that because the baggage was never weighed she never got a fair chance at defending herself. So I think we are in agreeance there. It is the reason behind this that we dont agree on.


Her treatment at the hands of the police is nothing more than hearsay. It does indicate however, like you say, a persistant mistreatment of Schapelle.

The attempted trickery could also be conceived as lazy cops trying to make things easier for themselves. Nothing beats a written confession right?

I explained above how weighing the baggage could be conceived as unecessay.

Planting a little evidence to make the whole process alot easier once the prisoner is in custody is completely different than planting a massive bag of pot before she had even entered the country!!

So here is my summary answer. Take note of its concise nature

Over all I agree with what you say in so far as the treatment of Schapelle, the evidence and just about every aspect of the trial has been deplorable.

There have been crucial errors by the Indonesians that may have very well may have removed any chance Schapelle had of clearing her name.

Do I think any of these crucial errors were made deliberately? No I don't.

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DJ Wolf

First off, a written confession is not the best evidence. It's not even close. More than half of confessions are thrown out of court simply because if the defendant isn't agreeing with it in court then the court accepts that the defendant was coerced or not in a right frame of mind.

I will admit to one assumption that I expect you as supporters to accept. Neither Schapelle nor Mercedes lied in the telling to these events whether it was in Schapelle's book or whether it was from Mercedes account. So while I expect others to say that Schapelle's account was mere heresay, I give it far more weight.

There also seems to be perspective problems in the telling of these events. I am taking the stories as they were told by those who were there when the events were fresh in their minds. The first two police to arrive had been patrolling the area and arrived at the desk within 2 minutes of the find. They were the ones handling the plastic and laughing. The other police didn't arrive until about ten minutes, and more, later.

Schapelle had said to a policeman, "Why don't you weigh the bags and you'll see" or something to that effect. When Mercedes arrived she asked a cop to weigh the four bags and he didn't answer. Later Mercedes again asked the police to weigh the four bags. Then when it was obvious nothing was going to happen Mercedes asked a customs officer and he said that he would do it. Later, Mercedes noted that the bags were next to the scales but was unable to verify if the bags had been weighed.

On the television coverage at the airport, a reporter asked, "Wy didn't you weigh her luggage? The cop replied, "It was unnecessary."

The point is that there was plenty of discussion concerning this that the Bali Police cannot say, "We forgot" or "We didn't realise the significance." Your statement that they probably did weigh the luggage is interesting because I wouldn't deny this in which case they are guilty of obstruction of justice, perverting the course of justice, and knowingly sending an innocent woman to prison rather than the more serious charge of planting the drugs themselves. However, since it is equally possible that they didn't weigh the drugs and a prosecutor in THEIR trial would argue that they planted the drugs which is why they didn't weigh the luggage, LET THEM PROVE IT.

For those who wish to argue, at any point, that the Bali Police did such and such out of incompetence, that something was an error, this was inexperience, that was an oversight, etc. I'd like to remind you that they won. They systematically removed every piece of evidence that Schapelle could use to prove her innocence so that the only hope she had left was that whoever was responsible might get a guilty conscience and come forward. That's not a defence and they weren't incompetent.

The two cops who arrived at the clearance desk seconds/minutes after the find had been the two cops on patrol of the area. Other cops did not arrive until several minutes later. The explanation I read from Mercedes a couple of years ago inferred that the manner with which they handled the bag was deliberate and their movements became more accentuated the moment she asked them to preserve fingerprints - just as a disobedient child behaves when you tell him not to do something and he does it even more.

The rest of the 'fingerprint story' is more of the same. The judges action to handle the inner bag after Schapelle's lawyer had just made the case that the inner bag could still be fingerprinted was more than an action, it was a message said for all to hear. My question is this: Since everyone from the first two policement to arrive on the scene, the policemen who followed later, the customs officers who came to marvel, and so on all got the memo, "fingerprints will not be tested", when was the memo sent?

More so because they claimed that they would determine what evidence would be presented before the court and what evidence would not. This makes the prosecutor their lackey. If they can determine what evidence can be presented then they can also prevent the defence from presenting that evidence or from challenging their actions. In later points I will prove that they did just that. This is also why the 'appeals' were a waste of time as well.

This demonstrates a misunderstanding - I think. If the Bali Police planted the drugs, then those who were involved knew about it weeks before Schapelle arrived in Bali - they just didn't know 'who' yet. Those who believe that the Bali Police did not do this are claiming that when the marijuana was first discovered, the Bali Police were suprised and unprepared. Since no one had ever tried to import marijuana into Bali before - EVER - they were suprised. Since it takes weeks to prepare a case, they were unprepared. Since Schapelle had been caught with the marijuana they had no cause to believe that weighing her luggage would exonerate her and had those four bags totalled 61Kg without the marijuana it would be the strongest evidence they could have.

As much as confessions are praised by prosecutors they are thrown out more often than not. Even eye witnesses can be discredited. The strongest evidence known to law is 'possession' and had those four bags weighed 61Kg as the prosecution's case claimed, it would have been proven that Schapelle had the drugs before she left Australia. Schapelle could not have pleaded "not guilty", there would have only been one trial and it would not have lasted more than a day or two.

In order to claim incompetence you must deny Mercedes' account that she asked a customs officer and he agreed to do it.

I think the real problem here is that you believe that an Australian baggage handler was responsible so perhaps we should leave these points for now and discuss that.

DJ Wolf

The 'Australian baggage handler' scenario was not a legal defence for Schapelle. What's more, supporters never got this. This is because proving that an Australian baggage handler put the marijuana into Schapelle's luggage does not make Schapelle innocent any more than proving that a friend or family member put the marijuana into her bag makes her innocent of the crime. In order for Schapelle to be 'not guilty' she would have had to prove that it was done without her knowledge. After all, if she knew the baggage handler, then proving that he put the marijuana into her bag does not mean she is innocent it only proves that she was part of a drug ring and the charge of 'conspiracy' would have been added.

Please imagine, if you will, Schapelle sitting in court with an Australian baggage handler saying that he put the drugs into Schapelle's bag. The first question the prosecutor would ask is, "How long have you known miss Corby?" The baggage handler would explain that he didn't know her and that the marijuana was put into a random suitcase so that it wouldn't fall into the hands of the Australian police who had found cocaine.

In effect, the baggage handler would be saying that it was all an accident and that there had been no intention to deliberately send marijuana to Bali. Since intent is everything in the law, he is saying, "Schapelle is innocent and I am not guilty of deliberately importing marijuana into Indonesia." The prosecutor is not going to dump his case and say, "Sounds fair to me!"

First of all, the prosecutor would argue that the baggage handler was trying to mitigate his actions by calling the deliberate importation into Indonesia, an 'accident'. Consider the judges ruling over Ambrozi's testimony at the Bashir trial. Since, Ambrozi was a self-confessed criminal his testimony that Bashir was unaware of the plot was not to even be considered by the court. And, the Australian baggage handler would face the same obstacle. His argument that he did not know Schapelle and was not 'working with' Schapelle would be viewed, quite correctly, as an excuse to minimise his own crime and would be dismissed.

Schapelle had only one problem and that was to prove that she had no knowledge of the marijuana. Proving that you don't know something is next to impossible as we all came to see. Schapelle's legal defence was that not only did she not have any knowledge of the marijuana but that she had no relationship with baggage handlers either. While the court would accept that 'others were also involved' the mere fact that a baggage handler put the marijuana into her bag does not clear Schapelle. Only the motive for the baggage handler's action could do that and since he is confessing to a crime, nothing he says is credible. It would not free Schapelle but make her task more difficult.

Perhaps you might argue that since a cocaine arrest did occur on the day in question and the AFP did find 10Kg of cocaine that this makes the baggage handler's story that the marijuana was placed into a random bag and not removed for fear of detection as more believable. If this baggage handler is from Brisbane then he will definitely not be believed and it would be claimed that he did this for Schapelle so she could avoid detection at weigh-in. If the baggage handler was from Sydney, it would be argued that if he were speaking the truth then why not bring the marijuana to the attention of the AFP thereby demonstrating his honesty and lack of complicity in the arrival of the cocaine? Why send it to Bali? The prosecutor would argue that the baggage handler did not want to fail twice. He had lost the cocaine but that was no reason why Schapelle should not distribute the marijuana in Indonesia as had been planned.

What you believe is immaterial because this court wasn't big on belief. Who could have imagined that a young beauty therapy student, without a criminal record, without THC in her blood, with very little money and no opportunity to acquire the marijuana, who didn't conceal the drugs, and had no reason to make a financial loss by taking it to Bali would be so easily convicted? On what grounds did her lawyers believe that the motive of a self-confessed criminal baggage handler would be accepted without proof?

Though I graduated from law school with honours, I never became a lawyer, but I was aware that Schapelle's defence was a sham from the beginning. Not only was the 'Australian baggage handler' scenario not a legal defence, I knew from the profiling work I've done for the police and the extensive work I've done and been acknowledged for in the area of International drug trafficking that the scenario was highly unlikely to begin with.

But, first I'd like feedback on this.

Murray

I think you are stating your points quite well DJ.
I don't know if there is an easy way of doing it...

admin

Youre joking right?

It takes at least an hour to respond to everyone of his posts!!!

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