British Grandmother Lindsay Sandiford Leaves Indonesia Death Row to Return Home
On November 6, two British nationals convicted of drug offences, including a 69-year-old grandmother, departed a Bali prison as part of an agreement to return them to the United Kingdom.
"The two convicts left prison and were transferred to the airport," said I Nyoman Gede Surya Mataram, an official from Indonesia’s Law and Human Rights Ministry, in a statement to AFP.
Lindsay Sandiford was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 for drug trafficking. She had been arrested in 2012 when Indonesian Customs officers discovered cocaine valued at approximately US$2.14 million concealed in a false compartment in her suitcase.
Sandiford admitted her involvement but explained that she had been coerced by a drug syndicate that threatened her son’s life. Her release and repatriation follow a recent trend in Indonesia of freeing or transferring several high-profile foreign prisoners, including a Filipina mother previously on death row.
Sandiford is returning home alongside Shahab Shahabadi, a 36-year-old who was serving a life sentence for drug-related crimes after his 2014 arrest.
Photographs from a November 6 handover ceremony in Bali showed Sandiford covering her face as officials processed the paperwork for her transfer.
Author’s Summary
A British grandmother sentenced to death in Indonesia for drug trafficking has been released from Bali’s prison and repatriated under a transfer agreement.