BALI: Human Rights lawyer Craig Tuck has been appointed as the lawyer of alleged New Zealand national drug smuggler Antony de Malmanche to defend his case facing the death penalty in Bali. Carig Tuck has concerned over police interrogated his client without his present.
Antony Glen de Malmanche, 52, from Wanganui, was arrested at the international airport in Denpasar on December 1 after 1.7kg of methamphetamine was found in his backpack.
He understood his client wouldn’t be spoken to by police until he was in the country on December 28, but found out the interrogation went ahead without him yesterday.
Cases can be won or lost at the police station, it’s a critical step in the process to have control of, he added. Mr Tuck has been instructing a team of lawyers in Indonesia including lawyers who previously represented Schapelle Corby and liaised with prominent death penalty defence specialist lawyer Ary Soenardi in Iraq.
He said several lawyers have been “staking out” the police station where de Malmanche has been kept.
“At this stage it’s really just positioning the correct legal team around him and knowing that we’re in for the long haul.”
Mr Tuck said the language barriers and different type of legal system were some of the many difficulties would be facing at trial. De Malmanche’s family were facing a hefty fee to pay for the legal team in Indonesia, he said.
The lawyers in Bali had been making sure de Malmanche’s health was good and he was getting everything he needed. He said he was going to Bali to marry a woman he had met on an online dating website. He was travelling in to Bali from Hong Kong when a customs officer stopped him.
