Corby lawyers seek more time for hearing

19:12 AEST Thu Jul 7 2005

Schapelle Corby's lawyers have demanded more time to prepare for the reopening of her drugs trial as Prime Minister John Howard hit back at increasingly bitter complaints that he's not doing enough to help her.

Mr. Howard insisted that he can't manufacture witnesses or evidence that does not exist.

His claim infuriated Corby's defence team who in turn earned a terse rebuke from Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.

"The main thing is that the legal team, instead of attacking the prime minister of Australia, focuses on the appeals court, focuses on the Bali High Court, attacking John Howard isn't going to help with the defence of Schapelle Corby."

Mr. Downer said the Australian government did not have a "silver bullet" which would prove Corby's innocence.

"Sadly, if we don't have the absolute proof of someone's innocence, if we just don't have the material, we can't provide it," he said.

Corby this week wrote to Mr. Howard pleading for help after Bali's High Court agreed to hear testimony from new witnesses backing her claims she did not know about 4.1kg of marijuana found in her luggage at Bali airport last October.

Indonesian officials set July 20 as the start date for the new hearing at the Denpasar District Court in Bali, but the Indonesian defence team wants to put that back to at least August 5.

Corby's Bali lawyer Erwin Siregar said "The requested extension is needed to marshal nine potential witnesses and to give everyone more time, it would be impossible for us to bring witnesses on the 20th of July."

Among witnesses the defence wants from Australia are Federal Police chief Mick Keelty along with the alleged owner of the drug stash, former prison inmate Ronnie Vigenza, who has denied any involvement.

Also on the list are two Victorian prisoners named only as "Terry and Paul" who allegedly joked about Vigenza's alleged involvement, according to testimony during Corby's original trial by John Ford, a remand prisoner in Victoria.

In Jakarta, chief defence lawyer Hotman Paris Hutapea reacted angrily to Mr. Howard's insistence that the Australian government could do little for Corby's legal battle.

Mr. Howard said in Sydney that while the government would do everything it could to help, it could not generate witnesses and evidence that did not exist.

"I am preparing a detailed reply which will outline all of the things the government has done, if there is evidence around and there is some way that we can facilitate that evidence being sent either personally by the people who want to give it or otherwise then we are happy to do that, but in the end, this case must stand or fall on its merits."

"We cannot generate outcomes and people and evidence and opinion that do not exist."

But Mr. Hutapea said Mr. Howard could do much more and that the prime minister's promises of cooperation have been "lip service to the public".

He said he had repeatedly asked for the names of customs officers and baggage handlers working when Corby traveled through Brisbane and Sydney airports on her way to Bali last year, but had been repeatedly refused on privacy grounds.

"My message to John Howard is that it is not too late for the government to help us, I asked them to talk to the customs, and they didn't do anything, just telling me I must do it myself."

Attorney General Philip Ruddock said the government was unable to provide Corby's lawyers with the names of commonwealth employees because of privacy laws guaranteeing anonymity.

Mr. Ruddock also said the government had asked anyone with information on the drug stash to come forward and accused the defence team of having unrealistic expectations.

Mr. Hutapea said he was not asking the government to manufacture evidence or force people to testify.

"Why don't they just give us even the names of the customs (officers), we cannot do anything without the names."

Mr. Hutapea said the new trial hearing would last only a day if the defence team could not provide new witnesses either in person or by video link from Australia. He denied any failure to present them would impact on Corby's ultimate appeal hopes against her 20-year sentence in the Supreme Court.

"Sooner or later, even without the additional hearing, the Supreme Court will decide the issue on what is already there," Mr. Hutapea said.