Is Shappelle Guilty?

[Christian Taylor]

I have been reading Shappelle's book that she co-wrote with Kathryn Bonella. I must say it was quite disarming to see it advertised on the weekend on an airport billboard. I hope they were being ironic.

Anyway, so far so good - the prose is hardly war and peace, but the story is compelling. I am still not sure if she's guilty, I tend to lean towards no, even though her family seems to be somewhat tied up with all of that stuff, her story stacks up - at least her pursuit for evidence stacks up, in that if any of it had come through it would have disproven her case.

Anyway, Today Tonight (gutter journalism at it's worst) aired a story last night which was anotehr nail in the coffin for Shappelle's release, which is obviously never coming anyway. Here's a transcript. (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/files/corbytranscript.pdf)

Regardless of whether she is guilty or innocent, my problem is that she wasn't given a fair trial, and that she could never have proven her innocence either way. The Indonesian police did not take the necessary steps to preserve evidence that could have saved her. In a country where guilt is presumed, and the death penalty is doled out to drug traffickers like parking fines, this is just not good enough.

Would be interested to hear other people's thoughts? The injustice of someone stuck in that situation is really quite unbearable to me...

[genkij]

Yes!

The entire family is dodgy !!

Note To Mercedes - Love ! threatening to sue someone is NOT suing them is it !! - If you had a legal leg to stand on wouldn't you just do it !?!


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I do think However That she wasn't given a fair trial - Mistakes & lies left right & centre .... I would like to think that if i was frames for something I would receive a fair trial.

I still don't like the look of the family & I think that she is guilty !!

Viva la Justice !

[Tim D]

I have been sitting on the fence for so long, but as each month passes more crazy stuff comes out about the whole family.

Mum, dad, brother, sister, cousin, aunty - they are all way too assocaited with drugs for her to be as completely innocent as she paints.

Here's the YouTube link to the Today Tonight story if anyone's interested:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=schapelle+today+tonight&search=Search

The quality sucks, but it's priceless enough just to see footage of Mercedes saying that she doesn't smoke marijuana and then to see photographic evidence of her with bongs etc.... the more Mercedes speaks, the less credible the whole family sounds.

[genkij]

ah ha mmmmm (No endorsement of health fund OK!)

[ottart]

shes as guilty as sin..

the whole innocent act was too boring... and not well executed...
maybe michelle leslie was better at it as she is home and poppin ekies like its mardi gras time...

the whole family is common as muck and just as dirty...

rot where you are drug peddling loser...

OOPs... sorry just a little passionate about drug pushers... lol

:)

[Seamus Ryan]

Although i havent been following all of it, from what i have read, heard, watch etc.
I think yes.

[Christian Taylor]

hmmm... with her staring down the barrel of 20 years there will be plenty of time for it all to unravel eventually...

she has very much stuck to her story though. i don't know... i just can't handle the thought of her not getting a fair trial. her legal team were shocking - her lawyer spent all her time texting and crying in the courtroom... evidence wasn't allowed to be submitted, obvious things were overlooked... a case of very bad timing in many ways.

perhaps her family set her up? as i read the book one thing is for sure, they certainly paint that mercedes to be as pure as an angel's fart, which of course is untrue. i did love that pic of mercedes just wasted with a reefer in her hand...

i guess it's a matter of watch this space until the shit hits the fan in a really obvious way. one thing though - people are so quick to point the finger and make assumptions without knowing all the facts though. in so many cases someone looks guilty and are later proven not to be. a dodgy family is not enough in my book to convince me of someone's guilt. look at lindy chamberlain? a classic case...

the whole thing has been handled so so so badly though. christ. it's gone way too far now. she'll be in her forties before she gets out of there. easily. no kings pardon for her, not after australia sent anthrax and threatened to withdraw our tsunami relief donation.

hideous.

still, she's got a pomeranian puppy and a kiddies pool in gaol, so that's something.

[Christian Taylor]

Yes!

The entire family is dodgy !!

by the way, that is the UGLIEST font i have ever seen.

[hazyinseptember]

guilty or not she's doing it right and staying in the press..

who even remembers the bali 9 or whatever they were..

Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

[Christian Taylor]

So I finished the book, and sorry, I know the poll thinks otherwise but I think the girl is innocent. I know it's written by her and her supporters, I know it's propaganda, but I genuinely think even if she was innocent she could never have proven herself, not with the trial she got.

Poor bitch. That's all I have to say.

Hazyinseptember - you do have a point about staying in the press, although I reckon if she could do it over again, she would probably not have involved them. It all went against her in the end, she became bigger than Ben Hur, there was NO WAY Indonesia could have sent her home with all that was riding on her!

I am flying through Asia next month. I will be sure to lock my bags. We don't want the follow up novel being released in bookstores - "Christian Taylor - One Gay Man's Story Of Survival."

Although, with the right cover shot, I am sure it would sell rather well.

[Christian Taylor]

Wow. The poll is pretty open and shut on this one. Guilty as charged.

Meanwhile, can someone please put a MUZZLE on Mercedes? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj8NcLMI-kk)

[meezon04]

Mercede's was doing an interview on a Brisbane radio station and kept saying that yes, she did drugs when she was younger, 'but hasn't touched them in years'

geesh, why not knock your sister over the back of the head with a frying pan!? :D

[jackie87]

The horse sister needs to go back in her stable...but I am not convinced she is not guilty

[lagerbay]

Hmmm ... Not given a fair trial??

I don't know, but I presumably thought I knew when I wrote my diary just after the conviction ...

"I'm not an Australian citizen, and today I'm quite pleased not to be.

Schepelle Corby just got a guilty verdict in Bali for drug trafficking. She was caught in possession of 4 kilos of hooch at Denpasar Airport. Her defence claimed that the drugs must have been planted since they weren't hers. Its not an especially creative defence and hardly likely to succeed in any court. And it didn't in Bali.

I've been looking at various message boards hosted by major news media in Australia and have been shocked at the majority opinions expressed.

The consensus seems to be that she was obviously innocent, the court was a 'kangaroo' court, the whole Balinese system is corrupt. A large majority of people are suggesting that Australia and Australians boycott Bali and/or Indonesia and that we ask for our tsunami aid money back.

I find it all pathetic.

Corby was arrested in October 2004. Her defence had 7 or 8 months to organise a defence and yet the best they can come up with is that "someone else must have planted the drugs". The court proceeding were completely transparent, and the court itself and at least one of the judges were the same as heard the cases of the Bali bombers .... when these same red-neck Australians applauded the handing down of a death sentence.

Personally, I think Corby is guilty. But even if it later proves not to be the case, she was found guilty by a reasonable judicial system and was given a fair trial. And whilst we might think it then unfortunate that an innocent girl was locked up for a time, I wonder whether we will consider those locked up unreasonably or even wrongly in Australia's detention centers?

Probably not. How can you equate some blonde with big boobs that cries all the time, with poor refugees who had and have nothing? Ms Corby had everything to live for .... refugees are just ethnic minorities that threaten our way of life ...

No, I'm not an Australian today ...

[hazyinseptember]

very well written mate.. i agree totally

[lagerbay]

Actually ... I think I remember the Bali 9 ... No doubt I had something to say about it in my diary at the time LOL