Frustration in Dubai

WHEN Australian citizens get caught up in legal trouble overseas, it doesn't take long for news to filter home.

WHEN Australian citizens get caught up in legal trouble overseas, it doesn't take long for news to filter home.

Consular representations are made, and in the case of lawyer Melinda Taylor, who was held in Libya earlier this year, Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr flew to Tripoli and personally intervened. So what to make of Cameron Stewart's story on two Australian businessmen, Marcus Lee and Matt Joyce, who have been trapped in Dubai on bribery charges for the past four years, first in jail and now under house arrest? An Australian court has cast doubt on the case, but the two are facing the real prospect of a jail term in Dubai.

Former prime minister Malcolm Fraser summed up the frustrations of the two men and their supporters when he wrote to Carr urging greater Government efforts: "This is not Australia's idea of justice."