Briton's drugs death sentence commuted to life

A 35-year-old Briton was sentenced to death for drugs smuggling in Thailand today – but it was immediately commuted to a life sentence.

Former teacher Julian Nicholas Gilbey, 35, from Scotland’s Isle of Bute, along with a Dutchman and two men from Nepal, was convicted of trafficking heroin by the Bangkok court.

Gilbey’s family said he thought he was smuggling diamonds.

The court ruled that the four men were guilty of conspiring to smuggle 9.46 lbs of heroin through Bangkok’s international airport last October.

The judges handed down death sentences for the four but immediately commuted them to life in prison, saying the defendants had cooperated with authorities. The practice is common in Thailand’s judicial system.

A Thai woman was acquitted but was ordered held pending an appeal by the state prosecutor. The woman was described as the Dutchman’s girlfriend.

All five had denied the charges and lawyers for the men said they will appeal.

Dressed in brown prison outfits and shackled at the ankles, they stood silently as a judge read out their sentence in Thai.

Acting on a tip-off, Thai police arrested Gilbey, the Dutchman and his girlfriend at Bangkok’s Don Muang Airport with a suitcase filled with heroin.

The three suspects had been tailed from a hotel, where the Nepalese men had delivered the suitcase.

The Nepalese told the court they were stopped on the street by another foreigner and asked to deliver the suitcase to Gilbey and the Dutchman without knowing its contents.

Possession of more than 100 grams of heroin in Thailand is considered trafficking and is punishable by death.

Gilbey’s sister, Karen Cameron, said the family was relieved he had not been sentenced to death but said her mother was “devastated.”

“My mother’s 70 years old and wants to see her son again. He’s not been treated right through all of this. Obviously, she’s devastated,” she told the BBC