Arrest and Trial
On 21 August 2005 two pills were discovered by police in Michelle Leslie's handbag during her visit to an open-air dance party at GWK park on the Indonesian island of Bali. Police suspected the pills to be illegal substances and she was arrested, with forensic tests subsequently finding the pills to be the drug ecstasy. Urine tests conducted at the time of her arrest showed no evidence of the use of the drug, although a later blood test found traces of amphetamines. Her arrest was the third arrest of an Australian in Bali on drugs charges in twelve months following the Schapelle Corby and Bali Nine cases. This prompted Australian Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, to warn Australians about the dangers of drug possession while travelling in Asia, and led the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, to comment that Australians caught with drugs "can't expect the Government to bail them out."
According to Indonesian police, Leslie claimed that the pills were given to her by a friend, "Mia". Mia was later revealed to be Nameera Azmaan, who was also a model based in Singapore and working out of the Chic Management Agency. Azmaan denied having given the ecstasy to Ms Leslie. At the time of arrest, Leslie was in the company of Azman and, allegedly, one of the sons of the then Coordinating Minister for the Economy Aburizal Bakrie and two unidentified men.
On 14 October 2005 the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Leslie could possibly be released within weeks as a report from a Sydney doctor had been provided to prosecutors stating that she was addicted to prescription medication. Under Indonesian law this would allow her to be tried as a "user" and benefit from a reduced sentence. The maximum sentence for a user is three months' imprisonment, whereas the maximum penalty for possession is 15 years.
Leslie's trial began on 28 October 2005 in the Denpasar District Court and concluded on 18 November with her being found guilty of using a prohibited substance. She was sentenced to three months in jail but, due to the three months already spent in custody, was freed from Kerobokan prison at about 1 pm on 19 November. Indonesian immigration officials announced the she would be deported from the country due to her guilty conviction. She flew out of Bali to Singapore where she spent time with friends and family before returning to Sydney, Australia on the morning of 22 November.
Read more about this topic: Michelle Leslie
Famous quotes containing the words arrest and/or trial:
“The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist’s way of scribbling “Kilroy was here” on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“Every political system is an accumulation of habits, customs, prejudices, and principles that have survived a long process of trial and error and of ceaseless response to changing circumstances. If the system works well on the whole, it is a lucky accident—the luckiest, indeed, that can befall a society.”
—Edward C. Banfield (b. 1916)