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The Indonesian government has given convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby a five year cut to her sentence.

Take a rare tour of Schapelle Corby’s Bali jail cell. Footage Komang Suriadi: Images Lukman S Bintoro.

PM Julia Gillard personally lobbies the Indonesian President to release Australian Schapelle Corby from a Bali jail.

Clemency … The decision letter from The President of The Republic of Indonesia to Schapelle Corby. Picture: Bintoro Lukman
Source: Supplied

FOREIGN Minister Bob Carr has rejected doing a deal with Indonesia to secure the early release of convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby.

Last week the Gillard Government announced that following a review three Indonesian nationals convicted of people smuggling – who claimed they were minors at the time of their interception – would be released from jail and returned home.

Reports are now circulating that Indonesian government ministers say Corby’s 20-year sentence has been cut by five years as part of a deal to release the people smugglers.

But Senator Carr said no deal was struck.

While admitting the Indonesian Government raised the issue of the people smugglers at a high-level meeting in March, Mr Carr said the government’s decision to release the Indonesians from prison was made independently of Corby’s case.

“We’re doing this with the minors because it’s the right thing to do,” Mr Carr said.

Mr Carr said it “could well be the case” that the Indonesian government regarded the people smugglers and Corby’s cases as linked.

But: “At no stage has the government sat down with our Indonesian counterparts and said, ‘we’ll release minors from our jails if you consider a clemency application by Ms Corby’,” Mr Carr said.

“But if doing what we’re doing for the right reasons on these minors has created a level of comfort in the government in Indonesia then that’s fine by me. That’s a good thing.

“But when it comes to the minors it’s plainly wrong that you’ve got these kids collected in people smuggling operations on boats at the wrong time stuck in adult prisons.

“If there were no Schapelle Corby there, if there was no Schapelle Corby in a Balinese prison, we’d still be doing this. We’d be obligated to do it.”

Mr Carr said Corby’s prison sentence, which was originally due to expire in 2022, was now expected to expire some time in 2017.

He said if Corby’s legal team sought parole the government would be “likely to support” that bid on humanitarian grounds, given her health problems.

Mr Carr was glowing in his praise of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

“He’s a great man he’s a great friend of Australia’s,” Mr Carr said.

“He’s made the right decision and we welcome it.”

Mr Carr said there was “a level of goodwill” between Australia and Indonesia: “And it’s not a bad thing.”

The Foreign Minister also issued a travel warning to Australians.

“This is a timely message to Australians – especially young Australians – that when you go overseas you’re under the law of other countries. You’re not operating under Australian law.”

Last night a source close to the Corby family explained why they believe Schapelle might get parole from a Bali prison in August.

The possible addition of five or six months remissions for Schapelle on August 17 – Independence Day – in addition to remissions already earned, would bring her to having served 10 years. That’s two thirds, of her now 15-year sentence.

The changing face of Schapelle

Indonesian prisoners can be considered for parole eligibility after serving two thirds of their sentence.

But the source said it was by no means certain that Schapelle would be given any remissions in August.

Her sister Mercedes told the Daily Telegraph: “Our family is thankful to the Indonesian president. And now we hope to confirm details of possible parole,” she said.

“We now hope there’s even more positive news to come regarding parole.”

Corby’s mother says news her daughter could be released from jail as early as August it yet to sink in.

“I think it hasn’t sunk in yet. I can’t believe it,” Roseleigh Rose said this morning.

“It feels like I want to bawl but I can’t. We’ve been up before we just have to keep calm.

“We’ve been waiting for eight years. Waiting for August will be nothing.”

Ms Rose said one of the first things on her daughter’s agenda when she gets home is to feel the Gold Coast sand between her toes.

“The sand between her toes on the Gold Coast, a lovely swim in the water at Tugun … it will be like holy water to her,” she said.

Ms Rose said she will be heading to Bali in July ”… and I will be bringing her (Schapelle) home.

Corby may have won her desperate plea for clemency, but she now faces the daunting task of seeking parole so she can escape the violence-racked prison she has called home since 2005.

With Indonesia cutting her sentence by five years yesterday, Corby could soon be swapping prison for paradise.

If paroled, she would leave her filthy, shared Kerobokan jail cell for a bedroom in her sister Mercedes and Balinese brother-in-law’s spacious Balinese compound home near Kuta, living with her three nieces and nephews.

“You must have some connection, some family in Indonesia or you don’t get parole,” a source close to the Corby family said yesterday.

Corby waited two years for Indonesia to answer her pleas for clemency after lodging an appeal to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in April 2010, based around her mental illness.

That reply came yesterday in the form of a detailed letter, written in bahasa Indonesia, that preached the good news.

“We haven’t got the official confirmation yet but are hoping that this is much-needed good news for Schapelle,” Mercedes said last night. “Schapelle hadn’t seen the letter by late afternoon but I hope she has now.”

The plea sought to have Corby’s 20-year jail sentence reduced, changed or quashed and was contained in hundreds of pages of documents addressed to the Indonesian President after she exhausted all other appeal avenues.

Prisoners are only allowed a single plea for clemency. The plea asked Mr Yudhoyono to give clemency to Corby by removing her sentence completely or slashing the years she must serve. But it made no suggestion of an alternative sentence.

The five-year cut to her term appears extremely unusual as Indonesia rarely – if ever – grants clemency to prisoners who have not admitted their guilt. Corby still denies she placed the marijuana in her bodyboard bag and says she was set up.

Prisoners must normally serve two-thirds of a sentence before being granted parole, meaning she might not be eligible until mid next year.

However, sources close to the family said that when the five-year sentence cut was added to several smaller reductions granted over the past few years, they hoped she could be out by August.

A spokesman for Indonesia’s President last night confirmed Corby’s clemency application had been approved.

“Decided: Clemency granted,” the letter says.

“(The application) has been considered to have enough reasons to give clemency to the convicted.”

The presidential decree, signed on May 15, granted a “sentence cut of five years so that the 20-year sentence given to the convicted is cut to 15 years in jail”.

Foreign Minister Bob Carr praised and welcomed the decision: “The Australian government has consistently supported Ms Corby’s application for clemency on humanitarian grounds.”

Last night he told Sky News he had been advised that parole was up to Ms Corby’s lawyers to activate.

He said even if a prisoner transfer agreement was eventually ratified between Australia and Indonesia there was no guarantee it would apply to Ms Corby.

Mr Carr had earlier tweeted that he had been finishing a Pilates class before he released an official statement on behalf of the federal government.Corby’s mother Rosleigh Rose said the family would hold off on celebrations until her daughter returned home.

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