Corby's plea for clemency 'a mistake'  May 27, 2005 - 10:03AM
Schapelle Corby's plea to the Indonesian president for clemency
may have been a major strategic error, an expert in Indonesian
law says.  The 27-year-old former beauty student from the Gold
Coast will learn her fate today, after allegedly smuggling 4.1kg
of marijuana into Bali in her body board bag in October last
year, when the verdict in the case is handed down in a Denpasar
court.  Corby has sent a letter to President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono pleading for him to help her and telling him how much
she loved Indonesia.  Simon Butt, associate director of the
Asian Law Group, said Corby's appeal for clemency may have
caused more damage than good.  "I've heard conflicting media
reports about the contents of a letter which Schapelle allegedly
sent to the president this week," Mr Butt told ABC Radio today.
"Now if that is, in fact, an attempt at a pardon, it's quite
extraordinary because what she's done is sought a reduction in
sentence or some kind of