Australia denies Corby deal with Jakarta

Australia denied on Wednesday doing a deal with Jakarta to have five years shaved off drug trafficker Schapelle Corby’s sentence in exchange for the release of Indonesian people-smugglers. Corby, 34, had her 20-year term for smuggling marijuana on to the holiday island of Bali reduced on Tuesday following a clemency plea to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Australian media claimed it was part of a deal in which Canberra had in return agreed to release jailed young Indonesian people-smugglers. Three Indonesian youths convicted of trafficking asylum-seekers to Australia were freed last week after being given the “benefit of the doubt” that they were minors at the time of their arrest. Another 22 cases are being reviewed. But Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr denied any deal along the lines of “we will trade that for this” had been done. “At no stage has the government sat down with our Indonesian counterparts and said ‘we’ll release minors from our jails if you consider a clemency application by Ms Corby’,” Carr told reporters. He acknowledged Jakarta saw the issues as “linked” and Australia’s moves on the minors had given it a “level of comfort,” but insisted Canberra acted on those cases’ merits, rather than for political purposes. “We’ve been releasing them because it’s plainly indecent to have in Australian adult jails kids from Indonesia that have been picked up on fishing boats being used for people-smuggling,” said Carr. “We would be making the decision on minors with or without Schapelle Corby in prison in Bali,” he added. Carr declined to comment on the implications for other Australians imprisoned in Indonesia, including the heroin smugglers known as the Bali Nine. Canberra would likely support a bid for Corby to be paroled “on humanitarian grounds given her health problems”, he added, referring to her lawyers’ claims that her time in the notorious Kerobokan prison had sent her insane.