Hmmm - I heard about this case having talked to Belial about it before I travelled to Bali last month - he was warning me to keep an eye on my baggage!

The thing is, that all of that stuff about packing your own luggage and not allowing people to tamper with it, does have to be taken seriously. It is the traveller's responsibility, and since it's impossible to leave baggage unattended in an airport these days without it being treated like an unexploded bomb, I find it hard to imagine that her luggage was tampered with once at the airport.

Unfortunately, no matter how 'flaked out' one might feel when travelling, that can't be used as an excuse. Particularly not considering the length of the journey.....I (and thousands like me) managed to travel the 24 hours by road and air from Europe to Bali without being too flaked out to notice anyone tampering with my luggage, and that's a fuck of a lot longer distance to go!

I'm not sure how the sentence she's received can be described as 'unjust' since there are signs plastered all over the airport at Depasar claiming that drug smuggling carries the death penalty. No matter the Western world's views on marujuana being 'safer' than alcohol and tobacco, it's illegal in Bali and the penalty for the crime is death.

The Indonesian economy is struggling and in Bali, they rely heavily on tourist trade, which would suffer if drugs were to become rife in the country. The Balinese are an exceptionally gentle and spiritual race of people, with enough daily struggles not to need to add drugs to the list. There is virtually no crime on Bali, so whatever we Westerners think of their methods, they've achieved something we cannot.....perhaps we should be learning something from that, rather than slating a country whose methods we believe to be too harsh.

No one should be punished for a crime they didn't commit, but since none of us know whether she did commit it or not, we can only comment on whether the punishment fits the crime.....seems to me that she got off lightly, considering that the death penalty could have easily been imposed under Indonesian law. No-one forced her at gun-point to travel to Indonesia.... and if you don't like the laws, stay out of the country!

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