Oregon woman lives nightmare behind bars in East Timor

[slimvictor]

When Stacey Addison left Portland, Ore., in September for a solo journey around the world, she was anticipating adventure. What she got was a nightmare with no end in sight.

The 41-year-old veterinarian is sitting in a jail cell in East Timor, the victim of a legal misunderstanding that poses daunting diplomatic challenges to the U.S. and anguish and heartbreak to her family and supporters. Political turmoil in the Southeast Asian nation and a murky explanation of the case against her has left no indication of when Addison might be released.

"We seek a prompt and transparent resolution to this case and that Dr. Addison be afforded all due process in accordance with Timorese law," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said this week.

Addison's visit to East Timor was to be a highlight of a series of trips around the world. A graduate of University of California-Berkeley and UC Davis, she lived frugally, and sold her car and most of her possessions ahead of her trip. She looked forward to seeing the area's exotic animals and meeting doctors in the same line of work. She had already been to Antarctica and parts of Europe. After a brief visit home, Addison resumed her trip in March.

"She got the travel bug when she was in college," said Addison's mother, Bernadette Kero. "Stacey isn’t married, and has traveled alone throughout the world. She saved and planned for this trip for two years."

But Kero says that on Sept. 5, her daughter was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and got entangled in a drug bust.

As she crossed the border from Indonesia into East Timor, Addison shared a cab with a stranger also headed to the capital city of Dili. The passenger had the cab stop at a DHL office, where he picked up a package that allegedly contained meth. Police moved in, arrested everyone in the car, and Addison spent five days in jail. When she was released on Sept. 9, authorities said their investigation was continuing, and Addison, who has no criminal record, was eager to cooperate. Her urine test came back negative for drugs, and her computer records were clean. She was granted "conditional release," meaning she could travel freely throughout East Timor, but could not get her passport back. She hired a lawyer and soon learned that such investigations could take up to a year.

cont at
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/11/15/oregon-woman-lives-nightmare-behind-bars-in-east-timor/

 

[neversickanymore]

I'm probably the last person to be in favor of the US flexing its considerable muscle, but in this case fuck it.. if I were in charge this woman would all ready be free.

Looks like the US is letting Timor hold one of or PHDs hostage.. nice look, we look like little bitches and this woman is fucked. Nice look. Maybe a new president with balls can solve this.. fucking where.. Timor.. yeah LOL..

 

[bit_pattern]

Looks like the US is letting Timor hold one of or PHDs hostage.. nice look, we look like little bitches and this woman is fucked. Nice look. Maybe a new president with balls can solve this.. fucking where.. Timor.. yeah LOL..

Yeah. If only the client regime in Indonesia had been able to hold onto Timor Leste with the bloody grip that the US facilitated and enabled for thirty years then this would never have happened 8)

 

[spacejunk]

Yeah, the history here is a little bit more complicated than anything a "new" American president can change.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

Folx, never share a cab, accept a ride, pick up a parcel, or carry a piece of luggage for a stranger in a strange place, especially across an international border. I'd not even accept a coat or hat from a stranger at a cold border crossing, even if I truly could use it.

I'm wondering if the meth smuggler in the story read Dr. Addison as naive, and hoped to set her up to take the fall for it if caught. This person is noticeably absent from this story, as told by Fox, and that's no small omission. We don't even get any basic demographics. Male or female? Foreigner or local? Kindly old grandmother, slick middle-aged businessperson, or thuggish youth? Under what circumstances did Dr. Addison meet this person, and what else, besides sharing a cab fare, did (s)he promise to do for her?

It's a very common experience in the third world for first world travelers to have a smooth-talking and aggressively friendly local glom onto them in broken English ("Oh yes! My friend! My Friend!"), offering to be their personal tour guide slash agent. These types of people scare me, because they're essentially hustlers, and definitely make me feel like I'm being hustled, no matter how genuinely friendly they may be. I wholly expect that they'll be quoting me higher prices than the merchants and offices they deal with on my behalf charge them, and pocketing the difference. They have to eat somehow, after all, and if I'm traveling in a place where I don't speak the local language or know the local customs, I suppose they're performing me a valuable service. But what I'm always afraid of is that at some point near the end there'll be some "misunderstanding", real or staged, the final result of which will be them telling me I owe them a large-ish amount of money, right then and there, with a subtle but unmistakably threatening tone. I avoided this in China by making it very clear, to any strangers who approached me out of curiosity, that I spoke the local language, needed no practical help, and had no interest whatsoever in any business deals.

Still, the comments at foxnews.com are facepalm worthy. It's truly appalling the hardassery conservatives are willing to muster in order to avoid realizing they live in a world where bad things happen to good people. And shame on Fox for leaving half this story untold, and in so doing spoiling for an international incident. Oh wait, never mind. That's what Fox does. 8)