head to sleep were the words ‘Sumudra, Freedom fighter’. I pulled up all the carpet, thinking maybe they’d hidden something, a little note, but I couldn’t find anything. If my obsession with the prison-wall graffiti seems a bit strange, I did have a lot of time on my hands!
After thirty-six days of living in that little Polda cell, I was moved to Kerobokan Prison. I knew by then that there were no ‘Get out of Jail Free’ cards coming my way, no quickly faxed evidence from Australia. But my lawyers were fighting to obtain it, and they had to win. They had to, so I could get back my normal happy life.
8
Evidence!
I OFTEN WONDER WHAT I MUST HAVE DONE IN A PAST LIFE to suddenly become so unlucky in this one. Since ‘Black Friday’, nothing – absolutely nothing – has gone my way.
None of it made any sense from the start. I spent endless hours lying on my hard cell floor, trying to get my head around it, trying to think of something I’d missed and firing impossible questions at the cell walls: who, when, where, why? Why was the stuff in my bag? Why had my bag handle been cut? Why were the zips done up differently? Why?
My mind spun wildly with imaginative conspiracy theories, as I tried desperately to make sense of this insanity. But still nothing made sense and no answers bounced back from the dirty yellow walls. I just had to hope that, outside, my lawyers were having more luck.
I needed them to try to find evidence to back my story, to tell the truth, to counter the dynamite evidence against me, of the drugs being found in my bag. There had to be something, some piece of evidence to indisputably prove that I did not do this. Even if we didn’t find out the whole story – the who, when and where – that didn’t matter as long as we had the crucial bit: that I did not put them in.
But my luck was running the wrong way.
From day one, Lily and Vasu struggled to get direct answers to direct questions about possible evidence. ‘Is there a baggage X-ray scan?’ ‘Do you have a recorded weight?’ ‘Is there CCTV footage?’ They were simple questions. Yes or no? But my lawyers just smacked up against a matrix of confusion. Trying to figure out the lines of responsibility was like taking a non-stop ride on the Sea World Corkscrew.
‘Sorry, we can’t help. Please call this person – please call that person – call Qantas – call the Airport Authority – call Customs . . . Sorry, that’s carried out by “other agencies”.’
My lawyers were infuriated that they couldn’t get any answers, and it became obvious that security at Australian airports was definitely not a synchronised, smooth-running, well-oiled machine. We discovered there was not one but many ‘agencies’ involved in airport security, and clearly there was no streamlined approach to either security or the handling of a crisis.
It was a PR crisis for the airports and the airline because of the one undisputable fact that a whopping 4.2-kilogram bag of marijuana had sailed undetected through not one but two ‘high-security’ Australian airports. And it was already big news by the time these people were scrambling for their non-answers.
‘The CCTV vision did exist, but, sorry, it’s been wiped. No, sorry, the CCTV vision never existed, the camera was switched off.’
‘The X-ray machine was switched off . . . Oh, in fact, it was switched on, but it only scans for explosives.’
‘The images are stored for seven days . . . no, thirty days . . . no, just seventy-two hours.’
I needed answers fast – very fast – while the evidence might still exist. My life was at stake; I could get shot dead or locked up for twenty years for this. But as I optimistically waited in my cell for answers, everyone back home was scurrying for cover. It took weeks of endless phone calls to ultimately get nowhere, while any evidence just vanished in the Bermuda Triangle of butt-covering and spin-doctoring.
I know that at least
After thirty-six days of living in that little Polda cell, I was moved to Kerobokan Prison. I knew by then that there were no ‘Get out of Jail Free’ cards coming my way, no quickly faxed evidence from Australia. But my lawyers were fighting to obtain it, and they had to win. They had to, so I could get back my normal happy life.
8
Evidence!
I OFTEN WONDER WHAT I MUST HAVE DONE IN A PAST LIFE to suddenly become so unlucky in this one. Since ‘Black Friday’, nothing – absolutely nothing – has gone my way.
None of it made any sense from the start. I spent endless hours lying on my hard cell floor, trying to get my head around it, trying to think of something I’d missed and firing impossible questions at the cell walls: who, when, where, why? Why was the stuff in my bag? Why had my bag handle been cut? Why were the zips done up differently? Why?
My mind spun wildly with imaginative conspiracy theories, as I tried desperately to make sense of this insanity. But still nothing made sense and no answers bounced back from the dirty yellow walls. I just had to hope that, outside, my lawyers were having more luck.
I needed them to try to find evidence to back my story, to tell the truth, to counter the dynamite evidence against me, of the drugs being found in my bag. There had to be something, some piece of evidence to indisputably prove that I did not do this. Even if we didn’t find out the whole story – the who, when and where – that didn’t matter as long as we had the crucial bit: that I did not put them in.
But my luck was running the wrong way.
From day one, Lily and Vasu struggled to get direct answers to direct questions about possible evidence. ‘Is there a baggage X-ray scan?’ ‘Do you have a recorded weight?’ ‘Is there CCTV footage?’ They were simple questions. Yes or no? But my lawyers just smacked up against a matrix of confusion. Trying to figure out the lines of responsibility was like taking a non-stop ride on the Sea World Corkscrew.
‘Sorry, we can’t help. Please call this person – please call that person – call Qantas – call the Airport Authority – call Customs . . . Sorry, that’s carried out by “other agencies”.’
My lawyers were infuriated that they couldn’t get any answers, and it became obvious that security at Australian airports was definitely not a synchronised, smooth-running, well-oiled machine. We discovered there was not one but many ‘agencies’ involved in airport security, and clearly there was no streamlined approach to either security or the handling of a crisis.
It was a PR crisis for the airports and the airline because of the one undisputable fact that a whopping 4.2-kilogram bag of marijuana had sailed undetected through not one but two ‘high-security’ Australian airports. And it was already big news by the time these people were scrambling for their non-answers.
‘The CCTV vision did exist, but, sorry, it’s been wiped. No, sorry, the CCTV vision never existed, the camera was switched off.’
‘The X-ray machine was switched off . . . Oh, in fact, it was switched on, but it only scans for explosives.’
‘The images are stored for seven days . . . no, thirty days . . . no, just seventy-two hours.’
I needed answers fast – very fast – while the evidence might still exist. My life was at stake; I could get shot dead or locked up for twenty years for this. But as I optimistically waited in my cell for answers, everyone back home was scurrying for cover. It took weeks of endless phone calls to ultimately get nowhere, while any evidence just vanished in the Bermuda Triangle of butt-covering and spin-doctoring.
I know that at least
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