[guitarman1]

Rozana Zubir:
Scared and lonely in lock-up

KUALA LUMPUR, May 11
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Rozana Zubir is a lonely, depressed and scared woman locked up at the Windsor Correctional Centre for Women in a Sydney suburb.

Rozana, who speaks little English, is held at a twin-sharing cell.

She has nobody to turn to for consolation, except for her lawyers who have visited her thrice since her arrest to take brief notes of her case.

Only five weeks ago, the Perlis-born car saleswoman was a carefree, single woman enjoying her autumn tour of Australia.

The trip was Rozana’s second outing overseas.

In November 2003, she was in London for four days. She had taken the holiday before starting on a new job.

"She had saved enough money in the last two years for that tour," her lawyer, Neil Mayell, told The Malay Mail.

He said Rozana liked Australia, unlike London which she complained was cold and damp.

Like any tourist on a whirlwind tour of Australia, she visited interesting sites in Sydney and the Gold Coast.

It was on April Fool’s Day that Rozana’s nightmare began.

That was when Australian Federal police agents stopped her when she turned up at the Brisbane Airport, ready to fly to Kuala Lumpur.

It didn’t dawn on Rozana that the black tar-like block wrapped in tapes and seized by Customs officers five days earlier from her bag at the Sydney Airport, contained opium resin.

The Australian authorities informed Rozana of her offence and whisked her to a Brisbane jail where she spent a night.

The following day, she was taken to a Brisbane Magistrate’s Court. Later, she was flown to Sydney — where she was alleged to have committed the offence.

In Sydney, she was taken to the Downing Centre Court to have her remand order extended.

Rozana was then taken to the Windsor Correctional Centre, a facility for women prisoners, to wait for her trial which is expected to start soon.

"So far, only one of her family members has visited her in the centre," said a Malaysian official at the Sydney Consulate.

A friend of Rozana told The Malay Mail that her mother, a farmer in Perlis, had mortgaged the family land to raise money for her daughter to engage lawyers.

"She does not come from a well-to-do family. Her family is poor. Our only hope now is for the Malaysian Government to help her.”

Malaysian woman facing drug smuggling charge in Australia:
Was Rozana framed?

EDDIE CHUA
KUALA LUMPUR, May 11
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Rozana Zubir, the Malaysian woman facing an opium smuggling charge in Australia, could have been framed by her friends, including an Iranian companion, into carrying the drugs Down Under.

This is what Rozana told her Australian solicitor and barrister who has been hired by her family to defend her against the charge.

Rozana, a car saleswoman from Kuala Lumpur, had told her lawyers that her friends could have planted the black tar-like block wrapped in tapes, into her luggage which she had left unattended at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

Neil Mayell, the barrister who will argue her case in the court, told The Malay Mail that they don’t think Rozana was a drug trafficker or a smuggler.

"If she was one, she would not have walked to the Customs counter at the Sydney airport for the officers to inspect her baggage."

Rozana, who had earlier collected the bag from the conveyer belt, walked straight to the counter and allowed the officers to check her luggage instead of walking through the green lane.

But she was in for a surprise when the officers unzipped and removed a tar-like block from the side pocket of the bag.

Mayell said they believe she was framed by her friends.

“Rozana had the bag with her all the time except for a brief moment when she stepped into a shop at the airport to buy something. Her friends, who had taken her to the airport, were keeping a watch on her bag while she was away.”

She had told her lawyers she suspected her two friends had planted the drugs into her bag.

Rozana and a group of some 20 tourists from Malaysia arrived at the Sydney airport on March 27.

"She was unable to tell the officers what it was. The officers too were unable to tell what the item was," said Mayell.

Although the Customs officer confiscated the block from Rozana, she was not apprehended.

Rozana, who had saved up for two years for the trip, continued with her tour to Australia uninterrupted.

She was only detained when she and the group turned up at the Brisbane airport to leave for Malaysia on April 1.

Australian police had arrested Rozana after conducting a test and found the block contained opium resin.

The Malay Mail reported yesterday that she faces a life sentence in Australia for allegedly attempting to smuggle 5kg of opium into the country.

She also faces a fine of A$750,000 (RM2.14 million) if convicted.

The Malay Mail also reported that Malaysian Federal anti-narcotics police had arrested an Iranian suspect in Kuala Lumpur after their Australian counterparts alerted them via Interpol.

The Iranian was arrested in a service apartment in Jalan Ampang, Kuala Lumpur, on April 6. Police also seized 2kg of raw opium from the apartment.

Police are trying to ascertain if the 55-year-old man gave RM20,000 to couriers to meet their expenses and air fare.

The reverse parallel between this case and Corbys is eerie,however there is a
much greater chance that ROZANA is an innocent victim than Corby when you look at the facts.
The media out here are pretending she doesn't exist ,to the best of my knowledge NO Auystralian newspaper has even run this story, I have been emailing the Sydney Morning Herald about this women about once a week for the last few weeks ,they keep ignoring the story, but its being "Corby'ed in Malaysia."
ps I'm sorry I can't provide a direct link as "the Malaya Mail" website is playing up, I posted the story from another forum I had posted it on and the link is no longer working ,a search of there site or a google or yahoo will give results.

[linskyjack]

Well, I hope the Australian Crimminal Justice system gives this woman a fair trial. THere seems to be loads of room for reasonable doubt in this case. .