Nine Australians have been arrested recently in Indonesia for attempting to smuggle heroin back to Australia. Some or all of them are facing the death penalty. It is becoming increasingly clear that at least some of them were coerced into it to some degree by threats against their families. One of them is seen and heard on a police video shortly after arrest telling another one to say nothing because we're dead but if we talk our families will die too. Whether they're total victims or just had the threats made to shore up something they'd already agreed to do, perhaps without knowing the stuff they were going to be carrying, remains to be seen.<br /><br /> http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2005/s1351177.htm <br /><br />What sort of threat would make you do something you didn't want to do or that you knew was dishonest or wrong?<br /><br />Forget the macho BS about getting a gun and sorting them out or standing up for what's right regardless of the consequences.<br /><br />In the real world you can be caught up as easily as a mate of mine who was subpoeaned as a witness in a court case about a relatively minor car accident he'd witnessed. He didn't know either driver, owner, or anyone else involved in it. A couple of days before the hearing he got a visit at home from a couple of heavies who made it clear to him that they knew where he lived (why else visit him at home?); where he worked; where his wife worked; and the routes they travelled. If he'd had kids at the time they would no doubt have told him where the kids went to school and how they got to and from school. It was made clear to my mate that it wouldn't be in his or his wife's interests to say anything that was adverse to the interests of the driver of the flash Mercedes which had actually caused the collision. My mate had no idea who these blokes were or where to find them, or who they worked for, although obviously they were applying pressure for the benefit of the Merc driver. He couldn't find them to retaliate, even if he wanted to. Even if he could find them and even kill them, not that he would, there would be others to replace them. He was sh!tting himself, and I would have been too. <br /><br />No prizes for guessing how he gave his forgetful evidence.<br /><br />He perjured himself. Should he have been prosecuted? Would you convict him? In the same situation, would you really have done any different?<br /><br />If someone commits a crime under the same sort of pressure, as might be the case with some of the Australians in Indonesia, are they really guilty?<br /><br />If, as seems to be the case in Indonesia, the bloke who ran it and made the threats didn't carry any drugs, would you slug him or the mules harder on penalty?
