SCHAPELLE Corby's former lawyer Robin Tampoe has revealed he refused an offer by Australian authorities to have the marijuana found on his client forensically tested, saying he feared the tests would incriminate Corby.
Speaking to The Weekend Australian from Dubai, where he now works and lives, Mr Tampoe has given a fresh account of his defence of Corby, who in 2005 was sentenced to 20 years' jail after attempting to smuggle 4.2kg of marijuana into Bali.
Mr Tampoe was struck off as a lawyer after admitting he invented the defence about corrupt baggage handlers slipping the drugs into Corby's bag.
Now Mr Tampoe has gone further, saying he overruled a request by Corby's legal team to have the drugs forensically tested as he feared the results could show where the drugs were grown, potentially incriminating Corby.
"I knocked it back because it would have come out as (hydroponic) and you can't get hydro in Indonesia," he says. "If we had had that tested -- and the testing is pretty full-on -- it would have come back to Australia and they could have pinned it down as close to South Australia. That's the reality."
Mr Tampoe says that would have been a "disaster" for Corby, who was subsequently linked to South Australian-based drug supplier Malcolm McCauley.
Mr McCauley later gave a media interview claiming he supplied South Australian-grown marijuana to Corby's father, the late Mick Corby, who Mr McCauley said was flying it to Bali. A photo of Mr McCauley visiting Corby in prison was later discovered by police during a raid on his home.
Corby has consistently denied the charges against her and The Weekend Australian has been unable to put the latest claims to her.
But Corby's backers accuse the Australian and Indonesian governments of blocking her team's attempts to have the drugs tested.
Yesterday, a spokeswoman for the Australian Federal Police confirmed Corby's lawyers requested forensic testing on the drugs immediately after her arrest. That prompted the AFP to offer to assist the Indonesian National Police in testing the drugs, an offer that was ultimately declined.
Mr Tampoe says the request was made at a time when the defence strategy was to blame corrupt Indonesian officials for planting the drugs. He said he overruled that approach, and the plan to have the drugs tested, fearing it would antagonise the Indonesian judges.
"I said 'No, that will **bleep** off the Indonesians'," Mr Tampoe said.
Former justice minister Chris Ellison, who was responsible for the AFP at the time, confirmed that version of events. "The offer of forensic testing was made but not taken up," Mr Ellison said.
Instead, Mr Tampoe invented a defence involving a ring of corrupt baggage handlers working out of Brisbane and Sydney airports.
"I got back from Indonesia; I was talking to a friend of mine. He said, 'Switch on Triple J.' Steve Cannane was doing his talkback and there was a lot people ringing in," Mr Tampoe said.
"A few had been ringing in saying 'Baggage handlers had been doing this'. And I said, 'There you go. I'll use that.' That's where it came from. It came from Steve Cannane on Triple J.
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