(CNSNews.com) - In a verdict that could affect recently improved relations between Australia and Indonesia, a court in Bali Friday sentenced an Australian woman to 20 years in jail for smuggling marijuana into the country.
Although Prime Minister John Howard has urged Australians to accept the verdict, the case has generated enormous interest in the country, where polls have consistently found a large majority of people believe Schapelle Corby's claims that she is innocent.
A panel of judges found the 27-year-old student beautician guilty of carrying just over four kilograms of marijuana in her baggage when she arrived on the resort island last October.
Emotional scenes from the courtroom were beamed live to television viewers in Australia, where the case has dominated news bulletins for months.
Corby's lawyers argued that the drug had been put into her bags by a smuggling ring allegedly operated by baggage handlers at Sydney's international airport.
Clearly sympathetic, Canberra took the unusual step of sending a letter to Corby's lawyers about the recently busted Sydney smuggling ring, but the court rejected it as irrelevant.
The government also earlier urged Indonesia not to impose the death penalty - a possibility in narcotics smuggling cases in the world's most populous Muslim country - and this week proposed a possible arrangement that would allow Corby to serve her sentence in Australia.
http://www.townhall.com/news/politics/200505/FOR20050527c.shtml