The Bali-based lawyer for murder-accused Sara Connor, has just returned from a fundraising event organised by her friends in Byron Bay which he says will help defray the travel costs of critical witnesses.
Erwin Siregar estimates around 1000 people attended the fundraiser on December 4, where attendees were asked to donate at least five dollars upon entering.
He told reporters the money will be used to bring two witnesses – Coleen Bowen and Kim Watson – to Bali to testify at Connor’s trial.
The pair were staying at the Pullman Hotel, across from Kuta beach and allegedly heard screams in the early hours of the morning.
Mr Siregar said Connor was pleased the fundraiser was held.
‘Among those who came to that event, among those thousand people, there were French, there were Italian, there were Spanish, there were also Indonesians. There were many Indonesians attending too,’ Mr Siregar said.
Messy & pale
Meanwhile Ms Connor’s trial has heard she looked ‘messy’ and ‘pale’ and was clutching her stomach, two days after the bloodied body of a Bali police officer was discovered on Kuta beach.
Motorbike rental shop owner Nengah Astika said he arrived at his office in Jimbaran, near Kuta, about noon on August 19 to find Connor and her British boyfriend David Taylor already there.
He said Taylor had dried wounds to his arm, knee and finger.
‘(Sara) looked messy, her clothes were not neat, her face was pale and so I gave her some water,’ Mr Astika told Connor’s trial on Tuesday.
‘She held her stomach like she had a stomach ache.’
He said Taylor wanted to rent a motorbike for the day.
It was the same day prosecutors allege Connor and Taylor went to Jimbaran, near Kuta, and burnt the clothes of Wayan Sudarsa – the Bali police officer the pair are alleged to have killed.
In response to Mr Astika’s comments, Connor said: ‘I wasn’t sick … I was just scared, and horrified and shocked … I just found out they were looking for me’.
Later that day, police officer Gusti Nyoman Suteja – who was ordered to keep watch of the Australian consulate – spotted Taylor on a motorbike.
Taylor was arrested, while Connor came out of the office accompanied by consulate officials about half an hour later.
Taylor and Connor face charges of murder, fatal assault in company and assault causing death, with prosecutors alleging they attacked Mr Sudarsa on Kuta Beach on the night of August 16 and left his lifeless body in the sand.
Connor continues to declare her innocence, saying she did nothing but try to separate the pair.
Connor’s matter will return to court next week.
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