Then I turned and yelled in blind fury at the three bloody prosecutors. I was mainly aiming for the man, Mr Ida Bagus Wiswantanu, and the ugly sour woman to the right of him, as I screamed, ‘Permisi, permisi, permisi!’ (Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me!) I didn’t think at the time what to say, but that’s what happened to come out of my raging mouth. They’d come into jail several times, and this woman had come to me crying, saying she was sorry I was going through all this and that she wanted to help free me. Was it just a twisted game she played on people? Give them a little flutter of hope, only to watch them in desperation in the courtroom, crumbling into a world of nothing thanks to her great work? I could very easily and quite happily have walked over and strangled her with my bare hands. She played me; she lied to me. I hated her. I hated all the prosecutors.
All three needed to do some work training. They had done nothing on this case, not one bit of investigation. No fingerprints, no baggage-weight checks, nothing. But then again maybe they didn’t need training . . . they won, didn’t they? They got me twenty years.
At this stage, I suddenly forgot about everything. I just had to get over to my mum; I needed to hug my mum. I brushed off all the guards who were trying to take me away, pushed through them to see Mum, Dad, Merc and Wayan. I leant over the wooden barrier to hold my mumsy. I told her, ‘All will be OK. He says no and gives me something better in His own time.’ She looked a bit clueless about what I’d just said, as she’s not religious, and said sorry for yelling at the judges and told me not to stop fighting, they’d all get me out of there, they’d all get me home. I gave her a hug and then the guards pulled me away.
In what seemed like one second, I was whisked out the door and past a million people. I was surrounded by noise, by more people, by more cameras in my face. My feet again didn’t touch the ground as I was lifted, pushed and pulled through a sea of at least a hundred guards in chocolate-brown uniforms, who were opening up the way a little bit for me. At one point, I glimpsed a cameraman trip in the manic scrum, taking a line of them down with him like dominoes. I heard the faint sound of their yelling voices echoing in the distance as they fell.
I quickly found myself sitting in the back of a police van, the door slammed shut and ready to go. A few cameras were held against the windows, the cameramen running beside us as we took off. There were four guards with machine guns in front. The sirens were screaming as we were hurtled back to the place where I really had to start to fight. One of the guards kept staring at me. I was sitting statue-still, completely numb, no tears, no tantrums, nothing. Everyone was silent. No one spoke a word until I looked up at the staring guard and said, ‘Twenty years’, with zero comprehension of what I’d just said. He nodded with sad eyes. He didn’t look at me again.
When we got back to Kerobokan, all the guards swarmed around me, but no one was talking to me like they usually did. They were all just staring as I walked zombie-like back into the prison. Eddie was waiting inside, as he’d heard the sirens. I pushed my way through all the guards to get to him and said, ‘Twenty years.’ He didn’t say anything, just gave me a hug and walked me back to the women’s block in silence.
I walked into my cell, put my bag down and said to the girls, ‘Hi, how are you?’
They all went quiet. No one wanted to ask the question.
‘Do you want to know?’
They nodded. One girl asked, ‘Are you going home?’
‘No. Twenty years!’ I said in a sing-song voice. Their jaws fell open, some burst into tears, all quickly scattered, leaving me alone on my mattress, looking blankly into space. I was a zombie; I was numb. My heart was shut. The only way I could deal with it was by not dealing with it, by turning everything off. I didn’t cry again that day. I couldn’t comprehend twenty years. I’d only been alive for twenty-seven years. If they’d said five years, I’d have cried, because I could picture that. It was a long time, but I could picture it. Twenty years, though . . . how long was that? There had to be a way out, and we’d find it.
17
Twenty Years in Hell
THERE’S NO MAGIC WAY OF DEALING WITH THE CRUSHING blow of being sentenced to twenty years in a filthy cage for a crime you didn’t commit. I was in shock, numb, uncomprehending of the gaping black hole that was, for now, my future. I’d been dealt someone else’s dirty destiny, someone who’d probably sat with a beer, watching it all play out as a compelling reality TV show, a reality that should have been theirs. I felt rage burning in my soul.
On that dark Friday afternoon after the verdict, I was called out of my cell to meet with my lawyers. They talked among themselves about my appeal. I didn’t listen. I was too tired, still in shock, a zombie, sitting lifeless and limp, slumped in a chair in a faraway world of my own. I needed time alone. I’d asked them not to come if I got jail time. But they’d ignored me.
Lily’s sister, Anggia, the lawyer Merc had first called, was there, too, and snapped me out of my daze. She put her hand on my leg, saying, ‘Don’t worry about it, Schapelle, it’s only twenty years, you still have appeals, don’t worry about it.’ I started trembling. I wanted to scream: ‘Fucking shut the fuck up! It’s not your fucking life, is it?’ I felt my fury flaring. I wanted to leap up, grab her by the throat, strangle her. But I didn’t. I just sat there, glaring.
I felt like strangling her sister, too. Lily sat opposite me, crying. I didn’t want to speak to her. I didn’t want her near me. I didn’t even want to look at her any more. I’d started feeling suspicions weeks before that all she was really interested in was keeping the fees rolling in. ‘It’s OK, Schapelle, we have appeal, we have appeal,’ she endlessly repeated.
She’d been totally lame in court and could have done a lot more. I wanted her to stand up, fight, make a case, question witnesses, argue against the bullshit contradictory testimonies of the customs officers. But she didn’t. She’d sat almost invisibly, texting or crying, her focus rarely in court. She hadn’t even bothered to tell me up front that I was her first criminal trial, her first drug trial, her test case. I’d put my life in the hands of a novice. Vasu, property developer/engineer, had also never before worked on a criminal case. The only reason they got the case was because Lily’s sister was on the consulate list.
Later that afternoon, I got on with life like I usually did: same old roll call, same old lock-up, same old cold dirty-water shower. I was on auto pilot, my heart black and tight, my senses seized up. I sat on my mattress reading, before lying down early to sleep. Somehow I slept well, exhausted and in shock.
The next day, Ron, Vasu and Lily came to see me, unsurprisingly still taking no notice of my endless pleas to my lawyers, my family, Ron, Robin, everyone, in the weeks leading up to my verdict: ‘Don’t come if I get jail time, don’t come, don’t come, don’t come!’ I knew I’d desperately need solitude if I got jail time, to think, to wrap my head around it, to cope with my broken heart. I also didn’t want to be stared at, photographed, taunted in the visiting area, and I especially didn’t want my family to fight through a media scrum at the front door. We’d all been through enough. I would just sit in my cage for a week, maybe go to church. But my pleas didn’t stop these three. They were on a mission. They had papers for me to sign.
Vasu, conveniently back from his business in Singapore, took me into a separate room, away from Lily and Ron, held some papers up, handed me a pen and said, ‘You sign, Schapelle.’ They were legal documents to keep them on as counsel for the appeal. I didn’t want them. They’d just got me twenty years. I’d wanted to get rid of silly Lily and bully Vasu for months. The only reason we’d kept them was because Ron and Robin had told us how great they were. Then it got too late to change.
But I signed the stupid documents. The pages were blurry, my head tired, dizzy, confused. It was not by chance they came in on that day. It was a strategic move to get me to sign when my head was in fairyland. I felt exhausted. I was vague, disorientated and totally out of it. I didn’t have a chance to talk to Merc. They
had to strike fast; they knew we wanted out. They couldn’t even wait until the Monday.
Next Ron started telling me a huge sob story about poor Robin. ‘He feels he’s let you down, Schapelle. He didn’t want to come in today because he didn’t want to face you.’ He told me Robin had been so mortified that he’d spent hours sobbing in the back of the empty courtroom after my verdict. When he finally turned up at their villa, he sat poolside crying into his drink, sad, depressed and drinking himself into oblivion all night long. ‘Schapelle, he still hasn’t slept, he’s still drinking now. He’s just drinking and drinking and drinking. He’s really down, Schapelle.’
He made me feel sorry for Robin, telling me he’d put his business on hold to run around working on the case, doing interviews, trying to help. Then he revealed his hand.
‘Schapelle, Robin thinks you don’t want him on the case any more. Please write him a letter telling him how much you want him to stay.’
I flinched. What? Write? Every single thing I’d ever given Ron had hit the press. I couldn’t trust him. I felt he’d violated my privacy enough, and I wasn’t going to write any more letters. ‘No, Ron,’ I replied. ‘I will not write a letter, you can just tell him.’
‘Schapelle, you don’t understand, he’s really, really depressed about this.’
Lily sat quietly, watching. Vasu was echoing Ron: ‘Schapelle, he needs to know you still want him.’
‘No!’
‘He’s so depressed, Schapelle.’
‘No, Ron.’
But Ron didn’t let up. He pushed and pushed until he wore me down. ‘OK,’ I finally relented. ‘But promise me it’s only for Robin’s eyes. Promise me it will not go to the press, Ron.’
He promised. I made them all promise at least five times. I felt so vulnerable, so exposed, nothing was private. Vasu slid a pen and a piece of paper across the table. Ron patted me on the back, smiling and saying, ‘You’re doing the right thing, Schapelle.’
I should have gone with my instincts. They burned me again. The letter did hit the press, several weeks later. Their egos and reputations were getting a bashing in the press; their motives and abilities were under fire. The letter was their crisis control, their insurance – Schapelle Corby still wants them despite the bad press. I also found out that the day I wrote that letter for my desperately depressed lawyer, he was doing an interview for 60 Minutes.
It is now becoming increasingly obvious that Schapelle Corby’s legal team was not up to the challenge of securing an acquittal. During her trial, her inexperienced lead lawyer failed to present a credible case and even cried in the courtroom during proceedings.
Daily Telegraph (Australia), 30 May 2005
Ron and Robin, my ‘dynamic duo’, were angry and upset about the backlash they were copping as the truth about their involvement finally leaked out. They reacted to the unravelling truth with their usual fast talking. They fed the press unbelievable and blatant lies, desperately trying to make themselves look and feel better. It was sickening to read.
Convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby has congratulated her legal team despite being sentenced to twenty years in jail. Corby’s Australian lawyer, Robin Tampoe, said the 27-year-old was positive about the result considering she could have been sentenced to life. ‘She said to us the other day, “Well done, guys, this is a great result. I know what it’s like, I know what the system is, I speak to people in jail,”’ Mr Tampoe told Macquarie Radio. ‘And in fact she sent me a letter asking me to be strong despite the fact she got twenty years.’
AAP Bulletin, 30 May 2005
In a prison meeting on Saturday, Corby had to convince the two men (Bakir and Tampoe) to continue standing by her, according to Mr [Vasu] Rasiah. She told them, ‘Please stay on and help me. See me through to the end and bring me home.’ Mr Rasiah said that a barrage of negative publicity had taken its toll on Mr Bakir and Mr Tampoe. On Friday night, Mr Bakir had said, ‘I am very tired, I can’t take this shit any more.’ The following day, when they visited Corby in jail, the two Australians had offered to stand aside, but Corby had pleaded with them to stay. Mr Bakir had been ‘very hurt’ by coverage of his background and his motives, Mr Rasiah said.
The Age, 31 May 2005
Ron’s motives were clear to us. Hours after my verdict, Merchad been called to an urgent, urgent meeting at Vasu’s office. She drove forty-five minutes across town. She didn’t have a clue what could possibly be so important. They’d kept her in the dark, refusing to tell her over the phone. She found out fast. It was all about Ron.
‘When did it start going wrong between us, Mercedes?’
My sister couldn’t believe it. She was stressed out and exhausted. She didn’t need his shit. ‘Ron, it went wrong when you made us sign contracts and then lie about them.’
‘Do you still want me, Mercedes?’
The simple answer was no. He’d created more stress for us all. We’d wanted him to be quiet and go away since he’d first made the bribe comment. It had all got out of control. Merc knew how to get rid of him. She told him that all the family wanted to hire an expert to deal with the media.
He went ballistic, furiously yelling at her: ‘Why are you listening to your family? What has your family ever done for you, Mercedes? Do they give you money?’
Merc wasn’t actually planning to hire an expert. She’d ended up handling all the media herself, such as organising family interviews with 60 Minutes and Woman’s Day after the verdict. The media kept calling Merc, preferring to deal with her. Ron’s angry reaction confirmed what we already knew: he’d been hoping to get rich. But his plan was backfiring.
Ron left Bali on Tuesday after coming in one last time to visit. It was a bad, bad day for me. It was black. I couldn’t stop crying, the stress and trauma of the verdict really starting to hit hard as the numbing shock was wearing off. Ron got straight down to business, holding up the contract I’d signed in March.
‘Schapelle, do you want me to rip it up?’ he asked. ‘I’ll just rip it up, Schapelle.’
It was a transparent attempt at reverse psychology. I didn’t bite. I was so tired, so sick of all the bullshit. I’d just got twenty years! ‘It’s up to you, Ron. Do whatever you think is best.’
He held the contract in front of my face and started slowly, dramatically, tearing it down the middle like a taunting schoolboy, no doubt hoping I’d stop him. I didn’t. Goodbye, Ron!
I needed to be alone, needed to get back to my cage. I was broken, sitting slumped over, with my head in my arms, sobbing, when Lily walked over to us and asked, ‘Why are you crying, Schapelle?’
I was incredulous. I glared up at her, thinking, What the fuck do you think I’m crying about, you silly woman? But I held back, instead snapping, ‘Lily, you have to ask why I’m crying?’
She walked off again, my eyes no doubt betraying my angry thoughts.
When Ron was leaving, he got almost to the door, stopped, turned and placed his hand on my shoulder, saying, ‘Schapelle, everything that I’ve spent, you can pay me back. You can pay me back $500,000.’
I shook my head, trying to make it sink in. My mind started spinning with thoughts. That’s a bloody lot of money . . . Where did it go – on your luxury villa, your drunken nights? It was ridiculous, but I was too tired to ask questions.
‘Yeah, OK, Ron. I might be here a while, though,’ I mumbled.
He patted me on the shoulder and said, ‘When you can, Schapelle.’
So now I had twenty years and a half-million-dollar debt. Great!
As the days in Hotel K passed, my numbness turned to hot anger. I was hurting deeply. It was so unfair. It had taken five months of self-discipline, helplessness, buckets of tears, disbelief, hope and hell to have my life snatched away; five months of being dragged to court each week, being the centre of attention, the topic on everyone’ slips, for the judge to take away my everything . . . Twenty years. I hated that judge. How had he suddenly become like God, in total control of my life, my future
, my dreams, my freedom? He was able to stop me being a woman, being loved and giving love, and to withhold the most precious gift of having a baby. I wanted to tug him off his throne. He’d dismissed evidence, refused to authorise forensic tests, refused to give me the chance of gathering some real evidence to defend myself. I hoped his halo might slip down and choke him.
I spent endless hours sitting on my little mattress in my cage asking the same questions: how and why did this happen to me? I was getting so tired of trying to make sense of it. How did my life turn in such a way that I’d sat before the same judge who had sentenced the terrorist Amrozi to death? I’d never pretended to be perfect. But I didn’t do this, I didn’t deserve this. I’d told all I knew in court, I’d told the truth, there was nothing more I could have done or said.
I’m not just a girl; I am Schapelle. I am a human being, with a lot of love inside me and passion for life and living. But now I’m Schapelle the girl locked up for between fifteen and eighteen hours each day, helplessly relying on everyone and challenging my emotions each day, by the hour, a terrified child, without a voice, without a mouth. Help me if you can, help me to understand; I will not disconnect and I will not self-destruct. I am precious and the love for my family is precious.
Diary entry, 5 June 2005
I was surviving from day to day by telling myself it would only be another six months until I won an appeal. I just had to hang on for six more months. But occasionally I let myself think about the alternative: if they didn’t give me freedom, what then? What were my options then? Would I stay? And how would I do that? How would my family handle that? It was a possibility. Shit! How would we go about planning for that future? If the appeal didn’t turn out well, then it was possible my release would be in 2024. I’d be forty-seven years old – a daunting thought. I should never have done the maths.
No More Tomorrows Page 23