British citizens jailed in Bali on drug charges to be repatriated
Two British citizens imprisoned on drug charges in Bali are going to be repatriated within hours in the wake of an agreement between the two nations, an Indonesian government minister has said.
Lindsay Sandiford, 69, was arrested in 2012 and had been on death row for drug offences. Shahab Shahabadi, 35, has been serving a life sentence since 2014.
The two will be on a flight leaving Bali early on Friday, according to Yusril Ihza Mahendra.
He told The Associated Press that the two will fly shortly after midnight to Dubai before continuing to London.
Mr Mahendra, who is the coordinating minister for law, human rights, immigration and correctional institutions, has previously said the two inmates had serious health problems.
The agreement to transfer them was signed by Mr Mahendra and British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper on October 21.
Sandiford was arrested in May 2012 after arriving in Bali on a flight from Bangkok.
Authorities found 3.8 kilograms (8.4 pounds) of cocaine worth 2.5 million dollars (£1.91m) hidden in the lining of her suitcase. During her trial, she said she was forced to carry the drugs by a gang that threatened her children.
In January 2013 she was sentenced to death by firing squad and Indonesia’s highest court upheld it seven months later. She has been imprisoned in Kerobokan prison on Bali island.
The severity of the sentence met with shock because prosecutors had not recommended the death penalty for her. The ruling was condemned by the British government and anti-death sentence activists.
Shahabadi, 35, has been serving a life sentence since 2014. He was arrested in Jakarta as part of an investigation into an international drug trafficking network.
Prosecutors said he sent 30 kilograms (15 pounds) of methamphetamine powder in several shipments from Iran to his partner for distribution in Jakarta, before finally arriving in Jakarta himself.
Shahabadi has been imprisoned on Nusa Kambangan prison island, known as the Alcatraz of Indonesia, since 2014 and was moved on Thursday to Bali ahead of his repatriation.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says Indonesia is a major drug smuggling hub despite having some of the strictest drug laws in the world, in part because international drug syndicates target its young population.
About 530 people are on death row in Indonesia, mostly for drug-related crimes, including nearly 100 foreigners, the Ministry of Immigration and Corrections data shows. Indonesia’s last executions, of a citizen and three foreigners, were carried out in July 2016.
Indonesia under President Prabowo Subianto has sent several foreign prisoners home under bilateral agreements with their countries.
They included five Australians convicted of heroin trafficking, and Serge Atlaoui, an ailing French national on death row who spent almost 20 years in an Indonesian prison for drug offences.
Mr Subianto surprised the nation barely two months after he took office in October by saying he planned to grant clemency to some 44,000 inmates nationwide — some of them imprisoned for political reasons — as a way to help unify the country. The first group of 1,178 began leaving prisons in August.
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