The man, who could not be named for legal reasons, owned a property off the Bruce Highway north of Brisbane next door to a property owned by Corby’s father, Michael Corby.

The man was raided one month before Schapelle Corby’s ill-fated trip to Bali, where she is serving a 20-year sentence for importing 4.1kg of marijuana found in a vacuum-sealed plastic bag inside a bodyboard cover.

Such a DNA test could have ruled out any connection between the marijuana in Corby’s bodyboard bag and the marijuana found on the property next door to her father’s property.

THE father of Schapelle Corby had a close friendship dating back many years with a man recently charged with growing commercial quantities of hydroponic marijuana sold in sealed plastic bags.

The man, who could not be named for legal reasons, owned a property off the Bruce Highway north of Brisbane next door to a property owned by Corby’s father, Michael Corby.

The man was raided one month before Schapelle Corby’s ill-fated trip to Bali, where she is serving a 20-year sentence for importing 4.1kg of marijuana found in a vacuum-sealed plastic bag inside a bodyboard cover.

The ABC’s 7.30 Report claimed last night that Corby’s Bali lawyers had rejected an offer from the Australian Federal Police to DNA-test the bag and themarijuana, after police had told them the results would be reported to the Bali police.

Such a DNA test could have ruled out any connection between the marijuana in Corby’s bodyboard bag and the marijuana found on the property next door to her father’s property.

Police are reported to have seized 5kg of hydroponic marijuana in plastic bags from the man’s sophisticated operation.

The program said that while the close relationship between the two men was not evidence that the Corby family had ever had any involvement with the drug trade, it opened up further possible lines of investigation.

The family have consistently claimed they are not involved in drugs, and continually protested Schapelle Corby’s innocence.

Her 18-year-old half-brother, James Kisina, faced court earlier this month over his alleged involvement in a violent home invasion during which a couple was attacked with an iron bar and menaced with a machete before a large quantity of cannabis and cash was stolen.

Police alleged the stolen drugs and money were later found at the Loganlea home of his and Corby’s mother, Rosleigh Rose. The house is owned by Michael Corby.

Mr Corby and the charged man, whom the program referred to as “Tony”, lived near each other and also worked together in the western Queensland mining town of Middleton in the early 1990s.

A neighbour of the two men said they were friendly and “associated with each other all the time”.

In 1996, Tony bought a grazing property 500km to the south, and two years later Mr Corby bought a property next door.

Mr Corby later moved to the Gold Coast to be close to his family after discovering he had cancer. He has previously admitted to being caught with a small amount of cannabis during the 1970s, which he said “wasn’t mine”.

Queensland police refused to comment on the connection between Mr Corby and the man charged with trafficking.

Also published in the Sunday Mail.