The Curious Case of Robert James McNeice

What are we to make of the curious case of Australian Robert James McNeice, who remains in a Jakarta prison 16 months after his arrest - ostensibly at the request of the Australian Federal Police - for allegedly embezzling Au$270,000 from one of Australia's wealthiest families?
I first met Robert in post-tsunami Aceh where he was trying to get a coffee export business off the ground. In May or June of 2008, an acquaintance with a ‘security’ background here called out of the blue to ask if I knew where Robert was because Interpol had a warrant for his arrest: I’ve no way of knowing if Interpol was involved and had not heard from him in months.
McNeice was picked up by Indonesian police in Aceh in August 2008. A short time later he was transported to Jakarta where he remains behind bars to this day.
The few media reports about the case say Australian authorities wanted him extradited to face charges back home. There's contradictory testimony about whether the extradition request was thrown out of South Jakarta court last year - which might remove grounds for detention as the 43-year-old is not accused of committing a criminal offense in Indonesia - but here we are heading into 2010 and McNeice's case has yet to be resolved.
Surely it has nothing to do with the shadow cast by the alleged victim of his embezzlement, right? I mean, it's not like "Aussie" John Symond, whose company Aussie Home Loans revolutionized the business of lending in Oz and made himself an enormously wealthy man in the process, is going to hold a grudge. The story goes that Symond's nephew John introduced McNeice to the 'ol man. From what I gather, he is accused of embezzling large sums of money from both men to support a fictitious watch-buying spree in the States: McNeice was part owner of a Sydney watch shop at the time.
Robert popped up in Aceh at some point after Dec. 2004 tsunami claiming to be a coffee wholesaler who wanted to export the province's highland Arabica under an Aceh Coffee Company brand. He told me he'd built up a chain of coffee shops in his native New Zealand that he'd recently sold off, and that he planned to invest in Aceh coffee.
Over successive casual meetings he described how he was successfully linking small highland plantation holders together in cooperatives, enforcing 'no-pesticide' standards as a first step to securing the valued international 'organic' label, while building a resort-style getaway in the hills of Bener Meriah. I recall some folks actually visited his 'resort' and came back impressed by the charms of cool mountain life.

For sure he'd got to the point of producing product: many expiates working in Aceh bought Aceh Coffee Co product in its distinctive silver package. It was pricy but good. Later, when I moved to Jakarta we'd meet occasionally for drinks and he'd always cough up a gratis 1 kg bag. He seemed to know what he was talking about, and yet... there was always something a little odd about the whole venture. Never managed to pin it down, but it just struck me as a really dodgy venture and that he was not to be trusted.
In the only detailed interview circulating (http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/news/3063463/Outcry-over-Kiwis-lengthy-Jakarta-jailing), McNeice says he refused consular help from both the Aussies and Kiwis (he holds dual citizenship) and decided to forego a lawyer until recently. Like everything associated with him, there’s the smell of truth amidst the turd.
He's certainly no cause celebre in Oz. He’s not become a media darling like Schapelle Corby - the curvy Aussie drug-smuggler busted in Bali a few years back and sentenced to 20-years in prison. In fact, the normally vociferous Jakarta-based Aussie press pack have been strangely silent about the case. Odd, given the Australian press' appetite for this kinda thing: evil Indonesia justice system/'injustice' experienced by ordinary 'mate'/$400 million self-made man hoodwinked by con artist/ etc. I reckon the story writes itself, no...?