Schapelle Corby finally has a date to again call Australia home

CONVICTED drug trafficker Schapelle Corby will be free to return to Australia in May next year.

MORE than 12 years after she was busted on her way into Bali with 4.2kg of cannabis in her bodyboard bag and after almost a decade in prison, convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby is in sight of again calling the Gold Coast home.

Corby, currently on parole in Bali, has six months of her drug trafficking sentence left to serve, and the parole board which currently monitors her have confirmed her release date is May 27. 2017, News Corp reports.

It’s then expected she’ll be immediately be deported from Indonesia.

The 39-year-old was released from Kerobokan Prison in February 2014, nine years after she was convicted of attempting to transport the cannabis.

Indications are she will return to the Gold Coast and perhaps join her sister, Mercedes, working at Mercedes’ recently-opened Coolangatta bar, Laneway Dining and Bar.

Mercedes moved back to the Gold Coast earlier years after many years living on and off in Bali as her sister served her prison sentence.

Mercedes told the Gold Coast Bulletin the bar had become a ‘family business’ but it remains to be seen how Schapelle would be involved.

“No, we don’t really talk about that stuff. We’ll wait to see what happens,” Mercedes said.

“For now it’s just nice to wait and see what happens when it gets closer to her coming home.”

Corby was convicted of smuggling 4.1kg kilograms of marijuana into Bali in 2005 and sentenced to 20 years in jail.

She protested her innocence throughout the trial, insisting she had no knowledge of the cannabis found in her bodyboard bag and that the drugs were in fact planted there by another party.

She tried to appeal her conviction and sentence, but was denied by the Indonesian Supreme Court.

An appeal for clemency to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on the grounds of mental illness in March 2010, was unsuccessful.

Corby’s sentence was later reduced to 15 years after a judicial review in 2012.

In February 2014 she became the first Australian to be granted parole in Bali, and the second in Indonesia.

Originally published as Schapelle Corby finally has a date to again call Australia home