Aussie union official on Bali drug charges.

[bambu]

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/cfmeu-official-robert-paul-mcjannett-on-bali-drug-charges/story-e6freuy9-1225814529038

AN Australian union leader faces a lengthy stint in an Indonesian jail after allegedly trying to smuggle just 2g of marijuana hidden in a sock into Bali.

CFMEU official Robert Paul McJannett was arrested early yesterday at Bali's airport and is now in custody at the holiday island's police headquarters, being interrogated about the drugs found in his luggage.

The marijuana was allegedly in a plastic ziplock bag hidden in a sock along with sachets of coffee. Coffee is used to disguise the smell of drugs.

McJannett may be sent to Kerobokan jail, where Schapelle Corby, who was arrested in similar circumstances, and the heroin gang dubbed the Bali Nine, are held.

As he was transferred in handcuffs from the airport Customs office to the police station yesterday, McJannett, 48, asked why the "paparazzi" were photographing him.

>>>>>

Another genius!

Obviously didn't read Schapelle's book 'My Story', Kathryn Bonella's new book 'Hotel Kerobokan', or Kay Danes' book 'Families Behind Bars.'

He'll just 'love' it at police HQ!

[kim from usa]

Good thing he didn't go to China. 2 grams is a very small amount I would think. Its a minor crime here if you get caught with less than an ounce (28g). The president is wanting to make it legal here I reckon, so we can have drunk and doped up people behind the wheel. I tried it a few times and it makes me think the cops are coming and they want to question me. I can't imagine trying to do anything like that.

[bambu]

Pity he didn't stay home for his holiday.
We have 'everything' Bali has, and a lot of it a lot better.
But no, he had to go 'overseas'.

A matchbox size amount of grass...and it's "drug trafficking"?...5-10 years in prison the penalty in Indonesia?

You'd be lucky to make a few cigarettes for yourself out of it.

Pity he hadn't taken a much closer interest in Schapelle Corby's case over the years,... how many articles have been written on her and all the others?

Pity once caught he didn't cooperate a lot better with the cops instead of allegedly grabbing the drugs and trying to throw them down a drain or toilet and allegedly saying his business partner could've set him up [Cindy Wockner told the radio today].

I watch 'COPS' true life cop show from USA on the Ci channel.
There a many many people in jails in America who should not be there.

[kim from usa]

Having never been there and seeing pictures of the wonderful beaches of OZ, why is that people vacation to Bali? Especially if they have strict laws like that? One would think a vacation spot might be a little more lenient on such things.

[bambu]

Beats me why they travel there, especially as our govt has a "rethink your need to travel to Indonesia including Bali as we have credible evidence that terrorists are planniing attacks" advice on its website.

Methinks it's the 'overseas glamorous holiday' mindset.

In NSW/Sydney one can grow several marijuana plants at one's back door, 3 or so, not 50, and smoke oneself 'stupid' at home all one likes...well the law changes every time a govt changes, but nothing much would happen to you, you certainly wouldn't be thrown in jail.
Possession of small amounts in public for personal use would see one only receive a small fine.
We have a 'million' niteclubs, gold coast beaches, Darwin heat and niteclubs...and english is spoken in them all.
Not everyone in the country is an 'intellectual giant'.

[kim from usa]

I have a small 14 foot unballasted sailboat and would love to sail some of those areas. Ah, warm beaches, water, wind, plenty of fish and those big prawn things, life would be good there. Except for sharks. I bought that old movie "on the beach" and it had a part in there with a small boat. If it was indeed made on an Oz beach. I am a mountain boy, never been around a beach much. Its 300 miles to the nearest one for me.

[Patricia]

Kim the "cheap" holidays are certainly a big attraction for many & especially the young people....most Australian resorts are very pricey & I know that you can often holiday on these islands (am including the airfares in this) for much less than say a week in a resort on our coastlines. Tis a little like snow skiing holidays...New Zealand Ski Packages are generally cheaper than those you can obtain here in Australia......hard to believe given that the return airfares etc all comes into the equation.

[kim from usa]

Kim the "cheap" holidays are certainly a big attraction for many & especially the young people....most Australian resorts are very pricey & I know that you can often holiday on these islands (am including the airfares in this) for much less than say a week in a resort on our coastlines. Tis a little like snow skiing holidays...New Zealand Ski Packages are generally cheaper than those you can obtain here in Australia......hard to believe given that the return airfares etc all comes into the equation.

Ah, then. Now that makes sense. Australian resorts are more expensive so its cheaper to go there. At beaches around here the Big resorts are expensive but there are enough mom and pop type motels and things to go to that are right next door and less expensive.

[bambu]

Hope he's got plenty of money, cause he's gonna need it.
10 years is virtually a death sentence there.
Last I heard the food at Polda police HQ was rancid rice and 2 prawnheads.

http://www.australian-news.com.au/Corby.htm

In the barbaric conditions of an Indonesian jail, this was tantamount to a death sentence. Most long-term prisoners are dead within ten years of being locked up. Without food and medicine supplied by family and friends, .....'s life expectancy in jail will be short.

For the past eight months, ..... was forced to share a cramped, rat-infested room with seven other women.  A recent visitor to ..... reported that the daily ration of food consists of a rancid bowl of rice with one or two prawn heads.

[kim from usa]

I guess its common sense. When you go into a foreign country, keep your mouth shut and keep your nose clean. My uncle always said never to never to laugh at a persons ways when you go to another country because you don't understand why they do it that way. Yankees always came south and made fun of us southerners for how we do things but different climate, culture, etc make things work differently. I have been to a few different countries and they are usually nothing like what people back home think they are. People make the wrong assumption that things there are just the same as they are here and there are many differences.

[bambu]

There certainly are.

But..... Indonesian President, the same one who's in power now, stood on the tarmac at Sydney airport in 2005 after the tsunami disaster side by side with PM John Howard and announced a "New era of cooperation and understanding" ...and [/b] "Friends forever in the region" [/b] ... I watched it live on tv.

We gave them 'everything':

This was the day they announced it together:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/At-last-their-tears-could-fall/2005/04/05/1112489491932.html

As Australia's military dead returned from Indonesia yesterday, the personal moments transcended the national one.

From the honour guard there were 100 salutes for each; paying their own respects, the Prime Minister, John Howard, and the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, bowed their heads nine times.

From Indonesia, there was the Medal of Valour, the highest award the country could give. They sat atop cushions which Dr Yudhoyono placed on the coffins; and from Australia, a vice-regal tradition - wattle for the dead. The Australian leaders wore it in their lapels, too. Major-General Jeffery straightened the flag on the last coffin, lay a sprig of gold, and made way for the families.

>>>>>

A few short weeks later, even after PM Howard wrote a letter to the court [virtually begging for mercy], a live telecast of the sentencing day back to here, they took Corby's 'life' away.

Then not so long after that they sentenced 5 or 6 of our young citizens to death ...told us to "butt out".
3 remain on death row, the others had their sentences commuted.

This union official, "Labor Party fundraiser", from WA might get some mercy, wouldn't hold your breath waiting though.


Oh, btw, same President is writing letters to Saudi Arabia govt and has his officials up there begging for the lives of Indonesian citizens on death row there.

Hillary Clinton, on her first trip as US Secretary of State, snubbed us and visited Indonesia instead, even though Indon and Aust are 1/4 inch apart on the map.
Sure told me and others a lot.
See any Indonesian troops fighting with the US in Afghan?
Not even afternoon tea, the plane rubber touching our soil.
Obama and his Democrats...baaah!

Indonesia and Obama, 'blood brothers'.

[Minx]

If he was enough of a screaming idiot to try smuggling it, esp after ALL the hype of the last few years, he deserves to pay the penalty

We expect tourists to obey our laws when they are here, why should we expect to not do the same when overseas?

What actually interests me more, is how it got past the Beagles in Perth...those little puppies have been responsible for a fair few 'finds'...perhaps the coffee covered the smell? It's always made me smile when i see them at Perth Airport, esp when they wander up beside someone, wag their little tails, grin and sit down beside them.

[bambu]

And how Corby's 4.1 kgs of marijuana in a boogey board bag got past the drug dogs and security checks.

It got past because they don't check outgoing luggage for drugs...or didn't.
If you believe it was there in the first place.
They put the bag right up on the check-in counter.

Steve and Dee from Melb found a loaf of bread size bag of marijuana in their luggage when they arrived after their flight from Melb, at their Bali hotel room.
They rang our embassy/Consul in a panic.
The Consul confirmed their story...told them to "get rid of it or you'll be eating Nasi Goreng for the rest of your lives".
Steve tried to flush it, it wouldn't, so he smuggled it out into the garden and ditched it.

___

People make mistakes...he made a mistake... a grass holiday in the sun with his 21 yr old son....'Let's party! in Bali!

Of course under our laws, a matchbox full of grass would see him not jailed at all.

"Nasty drug smuggler...out to corrupt Bali and destroy it"...ridiculous...just a misguided man on a holiday.

What he should've done was ban Bali from getting his $3,000 or more, and holidayed here.

Look at all these people on Border Security telling the biggest lies you've ever heard at our airports, smuggling in food, including bird nests of regurgitated bird bile, etc...lied on the customs forms...

..."any more food in these bags"?..."no"...."then what's all THIS".
They're usually let go, 'cultural diversity', or given a $200 fine.

Indonesia and Asia want to play hardball, fine, lock all their lying food smuggling tourists up! ...could destroy all our agriculture.

[bambu]

If he was enough of a screaming idiot to try smuggling it, esp after ALL the hype of the last few years, he deserves to pay the penalty

They don't read the East Coast papers, or any papers much over there, do they?
Big Kim 'never' read the papers, he'd be interviewed by the radio and journalists in 'doorstops' and would've have a clue about the latest headlines.

_______________


Maybe he missed all the Bali drug cases.
Maybe he'd just read all about the nightlife and partying in Bali.
See all the drug dealers in the streets in Bali?...60 Minutes was swamped with them when it went looking.
They must be invisible most of the time or the cops would see them.
Maybe the cops don't want to see them?

http://www.baliguide.com/dark.html

BALI AFTER DARK

In Bali's discos you'll meet also many "kupu kupu malams" ("night butterflies" or working girls) and young boys who compete with the females and service all sexes. All taxi drivers know the more popular karaoke bars and massage parlours in Kuta and Denpasar, and the various "Houses of ill Repute" in Sanur's narrow back lanes.

>>>>>

All illegal.

As reported in the BALI travel FORUM: "Prostitution is illegal in Bali. However, like in many countries, everyone turns a blind eye. Many girls can be found in nightclubs and bars in most areas.

A cynic could call that 'corruption'.

*

THE "KUTA" AREA

Everybody looking for some action and fun in the evening goes to "Kuta" which nowadays means the area extending about 4 miles or 7 kilometers North from the original village of Kuta and includes now Legian, Seminyak and even Basangkasa. Here are most of the better entertainment places offering EVERYTHING single male or female visitors as well as couples might be looking for.

There are several places such as CASABLANCA etc. – down-market open-air pubs and very noisy discos full of stoned Aussies courting Javanese "Kupu Kupu Malams". PEANUTS Discotheque on Jalan Raya Legian at the Jalan Melasti corner (about the border between Kuta and Legian) has been re-opened very soon after it was gutted by a fire.
Closer to the center of Kuta you find the BOUNTY SHIP with a noisy, over-air-conditioned disco in the basement and the re-built PADDY'S not far from the original PADDY'S.
When most places close around 2.00 or 3.00 in the morning, night owls of all kinds continue drinking at nearby MAMA'S until sunrise.

>>>>>

Stoned?...wonder where they get the drugs from?

[Minx]

Groan...I KNEW it was too good to last