Jock Palfreeman and Michelle Leslie are just two of many Aussie tourists jailed overseas for crimes they say they did not commit
HOLIDAY HORRORS: MODEL Michelle Leslie and Jock Palfreeman faced the real nightmare of being jailed for crimes they say they did not commit.
National
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IN THE second instalment of the Herald Sun’s Holiday Horrors series for True Crime Scene, we look at the stories of two Australian tourists who say they were jailed unjustly. One, model Michelle Leslie, has done her time. The other, experienced traveller Jock Palfreeman, remains locked away in a Balkan prison.
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AS FAR as Jock Palfreeman is concerned, he is languishing in a Bulgarian jail wrongly convicted of murder.
A young journeyman from Sydney, Mr Palfreeman is serving a 20-year sentence in spartan conditions for stabbing a Bulgarian man to death and wounding another during a street fight in the country’s capital, Sofia.
Mr Palfreeman said he had no choice and was acting in self-defence.
According to a police statement, he said he was carrying the knife because he’d been attacked six times while in Bulgaria.
Having travelled around parts of Europe in late 2007, Mr Palfreeman arrived in Bulgaria on December 22 to meet up with friends for Christmas.
In the early hours of December 28, Mr Palfreeman, 21, had been drinking with friends in downtown Sofia and, according to his version of events, witnessed up to 15 young drunken soccer supporters attacking two Roma gypsies.
He said he went to the gypsies’ aid, and pulled out his knife when the mob turned on him.
During the fight he stabbed to death 20-year-old law student Andrei Monov and wounded Antoan Zahariev, then aged 19.
Mr Monov was the son of a prominent Bulgarian psychologist.
During Mr Palfreeman’s trial, the young Bulgarian men involved on the night denied they’d attacked gypsies.
The gypsies were never identified, or located.
In December 2009, Mr Palfreeman was convicted and sentenced to 20 years’ jail.
He was also ordered to pay more than $320,000 compensation.
Mr Palfreeman had pleaded not guilty to all charges on the grounds of self-defence.
His father, Dr Simon Palfreeman, was present in court and said he was convinced of his son’s innocence.
“There was enough evidence to say, without doubt, he went to help and prevent violence,” Dr Palfreeman said outside court.
“What he did was a very heroic action that turned out with tragic circumstances.
“As far as I’m concerned, my son Jock is a courageous human being who did what very few of us would do, which was go to the aid of someone being deliberately beaten by a gang of drunken youths.”
Discrepancies later emerged in evidence given by wounded victim Anton Zahariev.
In a sworn police statement on the day of the attack, Mr Zahariev said just before Mr Palfreeman confronted his group of friends “there was already a fight between some of my friends and some other people — I believe they were gypsies but I’m not sure.”
In a second police statement five weeks later, he toned down his reference to a “fight’, saying the confrontation was only “an exchange of remarks and swear words”.
During the trial, however, Mr Zahariev had said he did not remember any gypsies being present. Krassimir Kanev, head of Bulgaria’s most active human rights group, went in to bat for Mr Palfreeman.
“It does not make sense that a foreigner who has come here on holidays would for no reason just pull out a knife and single-handedly attack a group of 14 or 15 men in the street,” Mr Kanev told The Australian newspaper.
Mr Palfreeman appealed his conviction and sentence.
“My motivation was to defend and protect,” he told the Sofia Court of Appeals.
“I never thought someone would die.”
His appeal was rejected in February 2011.
The court concluded the mob pelted Mr Palfreeman with rocks and concrete only after he’d stabbed Mr Monov.
In a final bid, with family backing, he took his fight to the Bulgarian Court of Cassation.
He was reportedly brought in wearing cuffs and leg chains.
“I want a retrial,” he pleaded.
“I did not attack 10 to 15 men without a reason. I did not attack them with the intent to kill them all. I know that they attacked me.”
The Balkan country’s top court rejected the application in July 2011.
“We are disappointed and angry at a decision that maintains such a disregard for evidence and justice,” a shattered Dr Palfreeman said afterwards.
Another high-profile incident involving an Aussie tourist being jailed for a crime denied was that of model Michelle Leslie.
Ms Leslie was used to being framed — in camera shots, that is.
But a Bali holiday in August 2005 turned into a three-month nightmare for the 24-year-old after police found two ecstasy tablets in her Gucci handbag.
Ms Leslie, from Adelaide, was with friends on her way to a party at the GWK cultural park when police stopped the group for a drug search.
An officer found the pills in Ms Leslie’s possession.
Such a find — leading to a charge of drug possession — had the potential to land Ms Leslie in prison for 15 years in Indonesia.
Ms Leslie said the pills were not hers.
She said another model put them in her bag.
The charge was downgraded to one of receiving drugs, and Ms Leslie served three months’ jail.
There were claims authorities had framed her by tampering with a second urine test, after her first had returned a negative result.
“She was sitting there and witnessed them (the police) pouring the powder (ecstasy) into her sample,” Ms Leslie’s father, Albert, was quoted as saying
“It was a set up … Everybody we know has no doubt that Michelle was framed.”
Ms Leslie, a top catwalk and photographic model, spent her first two months in a cockroach-infested Denpasar police cell with no ventilation or sunlight.
“I had to share that cell with up to 13 women at a time,” she would later say at a press conference.
She spent the rest of her incarceration at Kerobokan jail alongside convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby and Renae Lawrence, of the infamous Bali Nine drug smuggling ring.
“From the day of my arrest until the day I was released, I really believed I would spend the next 15 years of my life rotting in an Indonesian prison,” Ms Leslie would say.
“I can’t begin to describe how frightened I was and how confusing it was to find myself in that situation.”
In a controversial move that drew sceptical criticism, Ms Leslie turned to Islam and wore a burqa while in jail.
Different explanations were proffered for her decision to turn to Islam.
“I am a Muslim and I do understand the significance of wearing the burqa,” Ms Leslie said during the November 2005 press conference held after her release.
In May 2006 she told New Idea magazine she wore the burqa to avoid being raped after waking one night in prison to find a man sitting on the end of her mattress.
He was said to be laughing, and singing: “Jiggy-jig Missa Leslie. Bali holiday. Jiggy-jig.”
“I screamed, ‘Get out of here!’” Ms Leslie told the magazine.
“When I put on the burqa people were more respectful. I’m sorry if anyone is offended by that.”
Ms Leslie walked from the jail on November 19, 2005 and was escorted to the airport and deported.
“This has been extremely life-changing and a terrible experience,” she said upon her return to Australia.
Twitter: @_paulanderson_
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