Corby's final chance to find witnesses

16:48 AEST Wed Jul 20 2005

Convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby has pleaded with the Australian Government to help get her out of her Bali jail cell, saying she has had enough.

She arrived to chaotic scenes outside a Bali courthouse where her drugs trial is being reopened today.

Dozens of Australian and Indonesian cameramen and reporters mobbed her as a contingent of 10 Indonesian police officers escorted her from a police van to a holding cell behind the Denpasar District Court.

Her sister, Mercedes, screamed at news crews and slapped one cameraman, shouting: "Get away from her!"

Corby, convicted to smuggling 4.1 kilograms of marijuana, said nothing as she was taken through the melee.

She later had last-minute consultations with her lawyer Hotman Paris Hutapea.

But yesterday she told an Indonesian news crew she needed help from the Australian Government if she had any chance of being cleared.

Only one witness - an Indonesian legal professor - is due to take the stand in the reopened case today.

"My case is reopened again ... and no one from Australia has come," Corby said, speaking yesterday. "I need the Australian Government to help me here, my lawyers have been working so hard, so hard to get information, they've got information but no one can seem to help me."

Corby said she was unaware of any enemies she may have who would have planted the marijuana.

"Not that I know of, I have no enemies, but I've been sentenced to 20 years, I'll be out when I'm 47, and I didn't do it and I don't know why this is happening and I just need someone to come and help me and get me out of here. I've had enough of being in here."

Mr. Hutapea denies that a lack of witnesses will damage her appeal hopes.

He is expected to ask the court for a two-week extension so he can muster more witnesses.

The trial has reopened of an Australian woman sentenced to 20 years in a Bali jail for drugs smuggling, but key witnesses have failed to appear.

The lawyer for Schapelle Corby said he would ask the judges for a two-week extension of the trial in order to rally more witnesses.

They include some who support her argument that the marijuana found in her bag was planted.

Corby's case has attracted widespread sympathy in Australia.

The former beauty therapist was mobbed by reporters as she appeared at Denpasar District Court in Bali on Wednesday.

The only person to take the stand was an Indonesian legal expert, Indriyanto Seno Aji.

Corby's lawyer said several Australian witnesses, including two prisoners, had not been able to travel to Bali because they did not have the necessary paperwork.

Cry for help

Corby appealed for help from the Australian government in a television interview from her cell ahead of her retrial.

"My case is reopened again... and no-one from Australia has come," she said. "I need the Australian government to help me here."

"My lawyers have been working so hard, so hard to get information, they've got information but no-one can seem to help me."

The defence had wanted to delay the retrial from the start because of the difficulty of gathering witnesses.

"I'm having problems to bring the additional witnesses because ... [their] status is prisoners," one of Corby's lawyers, Erwin Siregar, told Reuters news agency earlier this month.

Corby, 27, was arrested last October when 4.1kg (9lbs) of marijuana were found in her bag.

She has repeatedly insisted that the drugs were planted by someone else.

Several thousand Australians have said they will not visit Bali in protest at her jailing.