Tonight is the premiere of the HBO Documentary Films presentation of “Ganja Queen”.  The movie tells the story of Schappelle Corby, which I’ve detailed before on the Stash and on my own blog.  Corby was landing in Bali on a flight from Australia when airport officials discovered nine pounds of marijuana in her bags.  Corby claims the marijuana was not in her bag when she left Australia.  The defense claims she was the victim of a airport smuggling ring that used unsuspecting passengers’ bags - a smuggler working in baggage at the Australian airport would put the marijuana in the bag and a smuggler working in baggage in Bali would off-load the marijuana from the bag.  There was even testimony from a Bali prisoner who claims to have overheard two other prisoners discussing how they had botched a similar smuggling assignment from Australia to Bali.

But the Indonesian courts aren’t very forgiving of drug crimes - smugglers and dealers can be given the death penalty.  Prosecutors wanted the courts to sentence Corby to life in prison.  Instead, for smuggling nine pounds of marijuana into Bali, she was sentenced to twenty years in prison, where she still sits today.

Just for comparison: I thought you’d also like to know that the same month Indonesian courts were sentencing Schappelle Corby to 240 months in prison for nine pounds of marijuana, they were also sentencing Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir for his role in the 2002 Bali [nightclub bombing] blasts that killed 202 people.  The Indonesian court upheld his sentence of thirty months.

Got that?  Conspire to kill hundreds, you get 2½ years; smuggle pounds of pot, you get 20 years.

Tags: documentary, HBO, Schappelle Corby

This entry was posted on Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 12:06 pm and is filed under 4:20 NewsHour, ACTIVIST ALERT, Marijuana in the Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a trackback from your own site.