British cocaine pusher grandmother released after 12 years on Indonesian death row
A 69-year-old British grandmother, Lindsay Sandiford, who spent 12 years on death row in Indonesia after being convicted of drug trafficking has been released in a deal between the UK and Indonesian governments.
Sandiford was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013, after she was found with nearly 5kg of cocaine worth £1.6m when she arrived on a flight from Thailand in 2012.
Sandiford was repatriated along with another British national Shahab Shahabadi, who had been serving a life sentence for drug smuggling.
Sandiford and Shahabadi were both said to be suffering from health problems while in prison. Last month, Indonesia’s senior law and human rights minister, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, said Sandiford was “seriously ill” while Shahabadi had “various serious illnesses, including mental health issues”, AFP news agency reported.
Sandiford attended a press conference in the Bali prison in a wheelchair hours before she was due to fly home.
She had admitted to the offences in 2013, but said she only agreed to carry the cocaine after a drug syndicate threatened to kill her son.
The UK’s Deputy Ambassador to Indonesia Matthew Downing said Sandiford and Shahabadi were being repatriated on “humanitarian grounds”.
They will be given necessary treatment while being “governed by the law and procedures of the UK” upon their return, he added.
In December 2024, Indonesia repatriated the five remaining members of the “Bali Nine” drug ring, after they served nearly 20 years in Indonesian prisons. The two ringleaders were executed by firing squad in 2015.
