Corby stunned by 20-year sentence

Amid pandemonium, screams of "liar" and a media frenzy, 27-year-old Gold Coast beauty student Schapelle Corby was yesterday whisked from Denpasar court to begin a 20-year sentence in Bali's Kerobokan jail.

The panel of three judges who heard Corby's case were unmoved by her previous tearful protestations of innocence and found that the prosecution had established her guilt in importing more than 4kg of cannabis in a boogie board bag last year.

"Is there justice in Indonesia?" the judges asked in their 80-page, two-hour summation and decision. "Yes there is."

They crushed the hopes of Corby, her family and the supporters who packed the sweltering courthouse when they finally announced the sentence, adding a 100 million rupiah ($14,800) fine to the two decades Corby must spend in jail.

Even before they had finished, they were shouted down by outraged supporters, with mother Ros screaming, "Liar, liar ... We'll bring you home Schapelle, we'll bring you home."

As spectators leaped on to benches, Corby remained standing, refusing the judges' order to sit.

Her lawyers immediately announced their intention to appeal, with the decision certain to increase pressure on Canberra and Jakarta to negotiate a prisoner-exchange treaty that would let her spend the bulk of her sentence in Australia, and possibly qualify for parole.

In the street outside the court, Gold Coast mobile phone millionaire Ron Bakir, who is an unyielding believer in Corby's innocence and underwrote her defence, broke down and wept.

Although a conviction and jail term were almost a foregone conclusion, the severity of the sentence shocked the dozens of supporters, journalists, TV crews and others who thronged the cobbled courtyard outside the building. Most had predicted 15 years or less, with many hoping for a conviction only for possession, which carries a 10-year maximum.

But the judges made it clear they did not accept Corby's defence that persons unknown had packed the cannabis into her bag after it had been accepted by Qantas staff, probably as part of a domestic Australian smuggling operation.

The evidence of John Ford, the Victorian prisoner flown to Bali to relate an overheard conversation of two other prisoners about the bungled smuggling attempt, carried no weight against the direct evidence of the cannabis found in a bag Corby admitted was hers.

The final decision handed down by chief judge Linton Sirait came at the end of a traumatic morning. Cheated of official press passes by a worker who decamped with the tens of thousands of rupiah handed over in fees, the huge media contingent arrived early to fight for position, passing through tight security into a courtyard that rapidly assumed the air of a circus.

Only a handful were allowed through the doors. The rest leaned in through the windows left open to catch a breeze barely sufficient to flutter an Australian flag waved by one supporter.

Corby's mother and sister, Mercedes, had to be pushed through a crush of TV crews that moved slowly backward in an ungainly swarm. Ros sat fanning herself in a room where only one small fan whirred from the ceiling above the judges' green-topped bench.

Corby was slipped in through a rear entrance shortly after 9am, dressed in black top and hair drawn into a bun, and sitting almost unmoving as she waited for the judges to arrive.

At 9.25am the panel arrived, Judge Sirait rapped his gavel three times, and the two-hour reading, shared by the three judges in turn, began. As the second judge started his turn, a Corby supporter leaned out the window and told reporters: "This one hates Schapelle. Has from day one. He wants to throw away the key."

As mobile phones beeped and rang, a cock began crowing.

Corby sat for most of the time staring ahead, drawn but composed, but as the reading drew to a close she began wringing her hands, and wiping tears from her eyes. Several times she turned and gave Ros and Mercedes a sad smile.

The sentence came as a thunderclap. An initial ruffle of applause was immediately drowned out by a roar of anger, the voices of Ros and Mercedes rising in a pitch above the uproar. Corby refused to sit, and forced her way back to Ros: the two hugged in a long embrace before officers from the prosecutor's office parted them.

Corby's exit was mayhem, the cordon formed by policemen with linked arms crushed by a swarm of reporters and cameramen until her escort reached the black van waiting to take her to Kerobokan.

Left behind and ringed by her own small army of cameras, Ros had one last message to the judges: "It isn't over yet."