According to Carlos Isagani Zarate, a legal expert and former congressman in the south-east Asian nation, prisoners sentenced to life usually served between 30 and 40 years, the maximum.
Birthisel, who is from Gladstone, had formerly been a safety and training adviser at Rio Tinto and had just started as vice president of health and safety at the Jakarta-headquartered mining company PT Asia Mangan Group, in Indonesian West Timor, at the time of his arrest.
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Philippine authorities originally suspected the couple engaged in human trafficking for the sex industry after the six women were stopped at Mactan-Cebu International Airport, having earlier tried to fly to Singapore from Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila.
Those charges were dropped and Birthisel was put on trial for breaching the country’s Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995.
According to court documents, his legal team argued the prosecution had found no link between Birthisel and the supposed would-be employer of the women, Hospitality Staff Asia, while four of the women recanted statements given to investigators, saying they had been pressured to provide evidence against him to have their passports returned and had been afraid.
“Evidence on record would aptly show that [the] accused was not instrumental in the supposed travel to Singapore. Neither did [the] accused persuade nor influence any of the private complainants in their decision-making,” Birthisel’s lawyers argued, based on documents summarising the case for his innocence. “Private complainants were already set to travel even before [the] accused came into the picture. As such the notion of transferring, transporting and harbouring [the women] has to be illogical and absurd.”
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The court was also told that Birthisel had cleared immigration and was in the pre-departure area at the airport before returning by choice to assist the women when they were pulled up by officials.
“Troy was already in a safe haven, he came back to rescue them, to ask the authorities what particular requirement was missing [to depart the Philippines] and [said] they were ready to comply,” Lulu said on Tuesday. “It showed some good faith but the court looked at it differently.”
The lawyer said the punishment was also out of proportion with the crime.
“I think there is really something wrong with the law itself. It’s too harsh of a penalty,” he said. “It’s just recruitment. It’s nothing like murder or trafficking at the end of the day. The act of recruitment should not take you to jail for your entire life.”
As for the painfully slow trial itself, he said waiting 10 years and four days for the verdict had been devastating for Birthisel.
“I’ve not even been a lawyer for 10 years… to put things into perspective. I’ve only been a lawyer for seven years,” Lulu said. “This case started way before I even became a lawyer. It’s longer than my career itself.”
The Australian embassy in the Philippines had helped support Birthisel in jail during the past decade including by paying his legal fees, Lulu said.