A British grandmother sentenced to death in Indonesia for drug trafficking has been repatriated to the UK after 12 years on death row. Lindsay Sandiford, 69, arrived in London on Friday under a bilateral agreement signed last month between Indonesia and the UK.
Sandiford was convicted in 2013 after customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated $2.14m hidden in a false bottom of her suitcase when she landed in Bali in 2012. She admitted the offences but said she had agreed to carry the narcotics after a drug syndicate threatened to kill her son.
She was repatriated alongside Shahab Shahabadi, 36, who was serving a life sentence for drug offences after his arrest in 2014. Both left Bali on a Qatar Airways flight to London via Doha, an official from Indonesia's law and human rights ministry confirmed.
Indonesia's senior law and human rights minister, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, said Sandiford was “seriously ill”, while Shahabadi was “suffering from various serious illnesses, including mental health issues”. Matthew Downing, Britain's deputy ambassador to Indonesia, said the two were being repatriated on “humanitarian grounds”.
Upon arrival in the UK, the priority will be their health, with a health assessment and any necessary treatment and rehabilitation. Their detention will be transferred to the UK, which will be fully responsible for legal decisions respecting Indonesia's original verdict.
Indonesia has some of the world's toughest drug laws but has moved to release more than half a dozen high-profile detainees in the last year. As of August, nearly 600 inmates were on death row in Indonesia, including around 90 foreigners.
