Saturday 31 August 2013

Lindsay Sandiford: Cocaine smuggling Redcar gran loses second appeal against death sentence

Three-judge panel at the Supreme Court in Jakarta unanimously rejected 57-year-old Lindsay Sandiford's appeal.

Cocaine smuggling Redcar gran Lindsay Sandiford has lost her second appeal against a death sentence.
 The 57-year-old faces death by firing squad for trying to traffic £1.6m of cocaine into Bali in May last year.

 She will now be executed unless she seeks a judicial review or is granted clemency from the president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has previously warned he routinely turns down “almost all” requests.

Since coming to power a decade ago President Yudhoyono he has pardoned just four drug dealers.
A three-judge panel at the Supreme Court in Jakarta unanimously rejected Lindsay Sandiford’s appeal, spokesman Ridwan Mansur said.

The judges agreed with the decision taken by Bali’s Denpasar district court, which sentenced Sandiford to death, and the island’s high court, which rejected her first appeal.
A Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokesman said: “We are aware that Lindsay Sandiford’s appeal to the Indonesian Supreme Court has been denied.

“In line with our strong opposition to the death penalty in all circumstances, we will consider how to support any application for Judicial Review or clemency that Lindsay Sandiford chooses to make.

“We will continue to provide consular assistance to Lindsay Sandiford and her family at this difficult time.”
Dr Jennifer Fleetwood, Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Leicester, who was an expert witness in the Lindsay Sandiford case:

 S
andiford, from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, but originally from Redcar, was sentenced to death in January for smuggling 4.8kg (10.6lb) of cocaine, found in the lining of her suitcase during a routine customs check.
Balinese police claim Sandiford was at the centre of a drugs-importing ring involving three other Britons.

She denies the allegations, claiming she was forced to transport the drugs to protect her children, whose safety was at stake.

She was later accused of damaging the image of Bali and received the death sentence following her trial. The penalty was imposed despite prosecutors asking only for a 15-year jail term.

In April, Sandiford’s lawyers tried to challenge an earlier High Court ruling that the Government wasn’t legally obliged to pay for an “adequate lawyer” to represent her.

But the three senior judges - Lord Dyson, Lord Justice Elias and Lord Justice Patten - dismissed the appeal.
And while Master of the Rolls, Lord Dyson, expressed “great sympathy for the appellant” and backed the Government’s view that the death penalty is “immoral and unacceptable,” he disagreed with Sandiford’s assertion that the policy of not funding legal costs for British citizens abroad was “unlawful.”

Article from Gazette Live
http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/lindsay-sandiford-cocaine-smuggling-redcar-5816780

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