The Ganja Queen

Yesterday I saw a fascinating documentary about a 27-year-old Australian arrested upon entering Bali. While she was going through customs, a bag of marijuana was found in her boogie board bag. The penalty for drug smuggling in Indonesia is death by firing squad.

The movie covered the trial and its effect on this woman, her family, Australians and Indonesians.

The woman arrested, Schapelle Corby, claimed she was innocent and that someone had put the drugs in her bag. She and her legal team theorized it was done by baggage handlers within Australia, or by Indonesian customs agents.

What made the film interesting is that I really couldn’t tell whether or not she was innocent. She seemed to make a convincing case for herself. And the investigation was poorly done, making it look like she was an innocent victim. However, some facts were odd – such as the fact that the drugs were shaped perfectly to fit a boogie board. And I had a bad feeling both about her brother (who drove the family to the airport and traveled with her) and her father. They both seemed strange to me, and perhaps a bit drugged.

Today I found recent information on Wikipedia (don’t click on this until you’ve seen the movie, unless you want a spoiler) that makes her and her family’s guilt (or lack of it) easier to see. A strange and fascinating story.