Learning to play the game
Further to the Michelle Leslie story, Crikey today published an "insider's eyewitness account" of the political connections and bribes that were involved in securing her release. The cops initially asked for 400,000,000 rupiah ($US40,000) but this was negotiated down to 100,000,000 rupiah ($US10,000). The offer was taken to Ms Leslie and she was asked to make arrangements (quietly) for this transaction to take place. This deal broke down when she spoke to her parents and boyfriend and professed her innocence to them. Neither the parents nor the boyfriend would stump up the cash because they believed her assertions of innocence and thought she was being extorted by the Bali cops.Admittedly it's another story with an anonymous source, but I find it to be a compelling explanation for the extremely short sentence Leslie received. At the same time, it suggests that Leslie learned how to play the game 'as she went along' so to speak. It also explains why former judge Marcus Enfield warned Leslie against "revealing the circumstances of her release from a Bali prison". Finally, it explains why Leslie has been so demure and controlled towards the media since her release and return to Indonesia.
Technorati Tags: Michelle Leslie, corruption, Bali, Indonesia
posted by Lisa at 2:44 pm
6 Comments:
I liked Tim's take on this at Road to Surfdom the other day (he isn't paying me for advertising at the moment, he just seems to be saying what I'm thinking better than I do :-)).
Some commentators have been crying foul about the way she played this game, with the "conversion" to Islam at all. It seems that all sorts of messed up stuff is going on with the Indonesian judiciary process. Tim pointed out that really, if the system is biased that's the system's fault and if you can exploit it, you should.
If someone told me I could get out of a jail term by paying them off, I too would be studying the koran & mortgaging the house in a heartbeat! When the stakes are so high, you play the game as hard & as dirty as it needs to be.
I think it's funny the journalists are the one's questioning it. All of a sudden morals are important to them!?!
I think it is the job of journalists to question so I certainly don't hold it against them. I haven't really seen much moralising over it in the media although I may not have been looking at the right news sources. The media simply seems to be wanting to get the story out. I hope the full story does come out. If this kind of corruption is so rife in Indonesian criminal cases then it certainly puts a new slant on the Corby case and hopefully puts pressure on the right people to stamp out corruption and make the judicial process more transparent and accountable.
Just a quick note, because I can't resist commenting on it. Over the weekend, 55% of keyword searches that hit this blog were to do with Michelle Leslie, eight of the top ten search terms being:
1. michelle leslie bribes
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Cool site stats. Is statcounter good?
I didn't really try any other free stats before. It's great, even though to get long term drill-down stats you need to pay - not that it is that expensive.
Since I just started logging the stats for this site a few weeks back out of curiousity the free version's fine for me.
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