What would you Do?

BE honest. What would you do?
You go to a party in Bali. One of your friends has a large handbag and you ask if you can put your purse or wallet in her bag. What you don't say is that it contains a couple of ecstasy tablets.
Unexpectedly, police raid the party, confiscate your friend's handbag and find, in your purse-wallet, the ecstasy tablets. Your friend is arrested, pushed into the back of a police van with four locals also caught with drugs.
The dilemma is obvious. You can admit to police the purse-wallet was yours.
This would almost certainly mean your friend is released but you are arrested. You then face something like 50 days in prison before your trial.
There is a real prospect you will be jailed for up to 10 years.
The second choice is to admit to nothing, even if other people accuse you of putting the tablet in your friend's purse. Or you get on the next plane home and put the whole experience behind you.
Never mind that your innocent friend is facing up to 10 years in a Denpasar prison.
That appears to be the plight facing at least one acquaintance of former Adelaide model Michelle Leslie who was arrested in Bali at the weekend for possessing one or two ecstasy tablets. If you believe friends and family of Ms Leslie, any tablets found in her bag were not hers.
She allowed other people to put their purses and small bags in her large handbag.
If that's right, someone must either let Ms Leslie face a brutal future in a Bali prison and live with their conscience or own up and take the rap themselves.
It is a dreadful decision.
To this day, I regard that as a pretty poor lesson in morality.
The case of Michelle Leslie is, of course, far more serious but the principle is roughly the same.
Own up and you get punished. Remain silent and you only have your conscience to battle with.
Like the Schapelle Corby drug-smuggling case, again in Bali, I have no idea whether Ms Leslie is innocent or guilty. No idea whether they were her tablets, whether she knew she was holding them for someone else or whether she was unaware they were there.
But, like the Schapelle Corby case, the severity and application of Bali's anti-drug laws have few limitations. The same risks apply in an ever-widening number of countries concerned about drug use and drug dealing.
The Balinese authorities accept evidence on face value. Ms Corby – and now Ms Leslie – had drugs in their possession.
Unless they can prove beyond reasonable doubt they are not responsible, and more particularly who is responsible, then the courts show little mercy.
If Ms Leslie did not put those ecstasy tablets in her bag, who did? And will they come forward and own up?
Or will they let Ms Leslie do the time even if she did not commit the crime?
What would you do?

till next time, Michelle.