Hotman Paris Hutapea, King Rat and traitor to Schapelle's cause

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Hotman Paris Hutapea, King Rat and traitor to Schapelle's cause.

The biggest traitors in this story were Hotman Paris Hutapea and Schapelle's defence team and the only one of them with any vestige of morality was Lilly Lubis who at least showed remorse for the hatchet job they had to do on Schapelle

Request for testing the marijuana
Lilly had handed Schapelle the form to apply to have the drugs tested by the AFP. The Australian Government needed either the defence or the prosecution to request Australian aid before they could test evidence from an Indonesian legal case. Otherwise, without such a request any movement in that direction would be regarded as gross interference. Once Schapelle had signed the form the AFP requested that the Bali Police who were supposedly no more than storemen with the duty to store and protect the evidence ship a sample to the AFP as soon as was possible.

Shocked the AFP
The response relayed by the Australian Consul in Indonesia that the Australian Government could not have a sample of the drugs shocked not only the AFP but the entire Australian Government. To begin with, Schapelle had said she wanted the evidence against her tested and she had nominated the AFP as her agent to do so and had the AFP been a private company she would have that legal right under the provision of the UN Charter on Human Rights that guarantees that the defendant (or his or her agent or advocate) has the right to examine the incriminating evidence.

Shocked the Australian Government
It shocked the Australian Government because the police of an alleged democracy have no rights over the evidence. The court has the right to dismiss any evidence brought before it but no police force can answer on behalf of the prosecution or the defence.

Howard had 'grave concerns' over Schapelle's Trial
When Howard announced that he and his government had "grave concerns over Schapelle's trial" Hotman diffused the situation by immediately announcing to the media: "Since there is no dispute over the origin of the drugs we feel there is no need to have them forensically tested."

King Rat killed off support and hope.
This act by Hotman Paris Hutapea ended any legal right the Australian Government had to render assistance and I have read it was the Australian government that refused to test the drugs. I first saw this claim on the EP and whoever started this lie is either a rat plant in Corby support or they are as dumb as cement because they are prepared to rewrite history to assert that it was Australia who convicted Schapelle and Indonesia was just a victim. And, before you go defending the fatman, you need to appreciate what he did. He spent far more time separating the Corbys from Corby supporters than he ever spent defending Schapelle and the reasons for this was that he didn't want anyone with legal savvy looking over his shoulder.

The Fatman attacks QANTAS
He attacked Qantas for not supplying the booking data but when they retrieved the lost data from the wiped hard drive he ignored the emails from Qantas and never arranged to have it sent to him.

The Fatman attacks Ellison
He attacked Chris Ellison for not finding witnesses and demanded that the Australian Government set up CCTV broadcasting centres in each capital city even though the court had already ruled that such televised evidence would not be admissible - Ford had to be flown to Bali. In addition, it was impossible for the Australian government to find witnesses or make arrests since Hotman had vetoed all attempts by the Australian Government to get a sample of the evidence by which they could tie any Australian criminality to the crime.

The Fatman attacks CUSTOMS
He abused the only witness who claimed that the Customs department never saw the marijuana until it was discovered by Winata at the check in counter. This happened while Hotman was trying to explain away the cut on the inner bag as a part of routine customs investigation. He never helped this man to make his valid point that someone other than Schapelle had contact with the drugs or the fact that since all luggage is routinely X-rayed as it enters Bali the only way Customs could have missed 4Kg of marijuana is if the Body board bag never went through customs but was carried from the tarmac straight to the luggage pick up area and placed by the carousel before any of the passengers were cleared.

The Fatman fails to gather evidence
He never petitioned for the Bali CCTV footage to be located.

The Fatman fails Schapelle
He never mentioned that no commercial quantities of foreign marijuana had ever been seized entering the country before making a police investigation of this case of the highest priority. He never mentioned that Schapelle had no motive to import so much marijuana when there was no market and no way for her to distribute it in the time.

The Fatman fails Schapelle again!
He never mentioned the fact that the Bali Police had destroyed, ignored or vetoed all measurement and analysis of the crime scene evidence - the state's evidence. He never demanded that the Australian government investigate the Corbys and present a detailed report on them to the court. He never highlighted the fact that if Schapelle was guilty then her travelling companions were accomplices and her sister the receiver of these drugs and questioned why the Bali Police had ignored them.

The Fatman attacks all Australians and says we are all criminals
When Ros attacked him saying "He won't be happy until Schapelle has no supporters at all" he responded by enlisting the aid of an Indonesian actress and they both went on Indonesian television to tell all of Indonesia that it was hard to say that Schapelle was the guilty person because all Australians are criminals.

The Fatman hands Schapelle to the prosecution on a plate
However the worst thing he did was to give Schapelle's conviction to the prosecution. We have heard that the prosecution had a prima facie case. What this means is that "on the face of it" Schapelle was guilty. She imported the drugs and was caught with them in her possession. The only possible defence was to dispute that the drugs were imported thereby forcing the prosecution to send a sample to the Indonesian State Laboratory for testing and allowing the AFP a sample to the AFP as their nominated agent. All he had to say was "the origin is in dispute."

This need not point to the Bali Police. Hotman could have said "we have not ruled out an Indonesian hate crime your honour." Australia was still reeling from the Bali bombing and it was quite possible that since the Indonesian Government had collaborated with foreign governments to hunt the perpetrators down, Jamaah Islamiah wished to end Downers demands that Abu Bakr Bashir be arrested as the mastermind behind the bombing by forcing the Indonesian Government to kill yet another Australian for them using the court as a weapon.

The point is that once the prosecution had proven that the drugs were imported and that Schapelle imported them knowingly, the case was over. The rest was window dressing. Even if guilty Australian baggage handlers had come forward and confessed their crime the prosecutor had proven that Schapelle imported the drugs and that she did so knowingly and so any additional guilty defendants would only be added as co-defendants and would not vindicate Schapelle.

However, by abusing Australia, Hotman had the blame for his failure ready to be placed at Australia's feet. He did not dispute importation and he allowed the prosecution's chief witness to establish that Schapelle was aware of the drugs without even cross-examining him to trip him up or to question the credibility of a man who required an interpreter to speak to the Australian media.

If you want to fix a trial where an innocent person is found guilty there is no point in corrupting the prosecution who only needs to do his job. There is no point in corrupting the judges who are confined to ruling on the evidence presented. To create such an unfair trial you only need to buy or influence the defence lawyers to not protest the injustices, to allow the prosecution to assert without proof whatever suited them and to not challenge the prosecution's case. That is how you create an unfair trial and we all agree Schapelle received an unfair trial.

"There are no Lawyers in Indonesia; only negotiators".
Indonesian lawyers generally know the score. As Erwin Siregar was quoted prior to Schapelle's arrest, "There are no Lawyers in Indonesia; only negotiators". And, he was right. It's not the lawyers fault; it's the system and it was summed up by an Indonesian guy outside of the Bali Courthouse: "When the police say you're guilty, you're guilty." Against that, Indonesian lawyers can't argue guilt or innocence because asserting a client is innocent would amount to calling the police liars since they always arrive at the courthouse with confessions, or verbal evidence of guilt. Calling the police liars is defamation which they can then charge you with and that comes with a 10 year prison sentence. So, Indonesian lawyers negotiate the lightest sentence for the victim.

However, Schapelle's case was unique. Normally, the Indonesian National Police are arresting someone for some kind of financial gain and so a bribe can get you free. However, Schapelle’s case had nothing to do with greed and little to do with the Bali Police either. The open support from the Indonesian Attorney General right up to SBY to murder an Australian citizen in such a way that Howard and his interfering cabinet could do nothing about it made the Bali Police no more than the thugs of this Indonesian Government attack.

Erwin, Vasu and Lilly may have been a part of this system but at least they tried. Lilly got the AFP permission form for Schapelle to sign and brought in an Indonesian ex-con who identified the marijuana as police grown Bali chaff – the rubbish they used to entrap tourists. Vasu stole a sample and brought it to Australia in an attempt to get it tested. Unfortunately, he broke the chain of evidence so that the marijuana he had could have come from anywhere and the Australian Government already knew where the marijuana in Schapelle’s luggage came from which is why they did what they did. And, Erwin, bless his heart, really tried. He applied to the court to have the inner bag fingerprinted only to watch the judge destroy the evidence in front of his eyes as if to say, “Remember where you live.”

Lilly found she was up against the brick wall
This was all a bit much for Lilly. She had grown quite attached to Schapelle and to have a front row seat for her murder was a bit much for her and the angrier Schapelle got because Lilly wasn’t doing anything the more tragic the situation became.
However, Hotman was a totally different story. He was “sent in” by the Indonesian Government as a “Mister Fix-it” because they could see that the original team were wavering and actually trying to defend Schapelle. In the “Chief of Customs testimony” that I have recounted several times in these forums Hotman demonstrated that he was one of the bad guys trying to get Schapelle convicted. To summarise, the testimony of Ngurah Rai Airport’s Chief of Customs stated that no one in his department saw the marijuana or was aware of it until it was discovered when Winata opened Schapelle’s bag in front of her. This meant that the Police testimony that they saw the marijuana on the X-ray machine was a lie. The relevance was that all incoming luggage is X-rayed in the Customs area by customs officers. Four Kg of marijuana would be difficult to miss and the reason why Schapelle saw the Body board bag on the ground away from the carousel was because it was never on the carousel. It was brought straight from the tarmac to the luggage pick-up area while the passengers were getting cleared. It never went anywhere near customs.

Customs office Winata had different stories
As a matter of interest, Winata gave a revised story to the SMH about how he saw the marijuana in the customs area, followed it and then watched to see who would pick it up before moving to the counter that was clearing the queue that Schapelle was in. There is a problem with his story. He didn’t see who picked up the body board bag because at that moment he was completely unaware of any drugs. When Schapelle was in shock and said to him, “I have some...” with the intention of saying “I have some marijuana here I wish to report” or something of that nature that would somehow make her a concerned citizen reporting a crime, Winata thought he had hit pay-dirt and I imagine he was most shocked when the police grabbed James and took him away for at least 30 minutes. You see, the police had been watching the bag to see who picked it up and James picked it up. That is because the police already knew about the drugs but the customs department did not. Winata’s revised story to the SMH was actually about how he was a part of the action by taking the police’s story and making it his own.

Hotman had uncovered the truth and a means to get Schapelle freed. He abused the customs officer and closed down that line of questioning. Unlike the other lawyers, Hotman was King Rat.

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