The Herald Sun wrote:AS SCHAPELLE Corby waits for her fate to be decided by an Indonesian court, thousands of kilometres away in Japan her former husband is in a state of shock.
The man who was married to the 27-year-old for five years has told New Idea he only recently learned his former wife was charged with smuggling 4.1kg of marijuana into Bali last October.
The Australian public has heard little of Corby's husband, whose name was changed in the magazine article.
The 32-year-old revealed how he did not know his ex-wife was confined to an Indonesian jail cell, despite talking to Corby on the telephone in October.
"I can't believe this has happened. It was a very strange phone call. She asked after my family and told me her father was very sick. She kept repeating herself," he said.
The Japanese man said he met Corby in a Gold Coast supermarket, where he was working as a cashier while on holiday and was charmed by her ability to speak his language.
The pair were married a few months later, in June 1998, at the city hall in the Japanese surf town of Omaezaki.
Corby agreed to live in the town, on the east coast of Japan, and while she had previously worked in Japan the lovestruck Australian found it hard to settle into life as a Japanese wife and the pair was eventually divorced.
Friends said the life the couple were living in their small beachside apartment - where Corby did bar work in a traditional Japanese inn and her husband worked on a tea plantations - was lonely for Corby.
Yoshie Matsuo, a neighbour who lived beneath the couple, said Corby had few friends in the isolated community.
"She didn't have many friends here. She must have been very lonely. I feel so sorry for her. I had no idea," the neighbour said.
With Corby facing the death penalty or life behind bars, the former husband, who said he could not recall the good times he had with Corby, said she did not deserve either punishment.
"She is a human being who doesn't deserve to die or spend her life in prison," he said.
And it sounds like she (or more particularly, her boogie board bag) was just in the wrong place at the wrong time:
Aust foreign affairs dept provides letter for Corby case
ABC Asia Pacific wrote:Lawyers for Schapelle Corby will present judges hearing her case with a letter from the Department of Foreign Affairs as part of a dossier of material.
...The letter is from a 1st assistant secretary in the department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and addressed to Schapelle Corby's lawyer, Lily Lubis.
It explains that baggage handlers at Sydney international airport were suspected of a drug trafficking role and that they worked at the airport on the day Schapelle Corby travelled.
But the Prosecutor, Ida Bagus Wiswantanu, says the material cannot be considered as evidence and at this stage of the proceedings with the hearing over, has no value under Indonesia's legal system.
While the judges in the case, preparing a verdict to be delivered on Friday week, have said they would examine material submitted by today, they indicated they would not consider information about airports in Australia.
Good luck FG Corby.
