A British woman on death row in Indonesia for drug smuggling will not be reprieved according to the country’s new president.

President Joko Widodo has announced that inmates already incarcerated for drug offences would not receive clemency.

“[Not all the clemency requests] are on my table yet. But I guarantee that there will be no clemency for convicts who committed narcotics-related crimes,” the president was reported to have announced in a speech to university students.

Lindsay Sandiford, a 58-year-old from Cheltenham has been sentenced to death for smuggling 4.8kg of cocaine into Bali.

Sandiford arrived on a flight from Thailand in May 2012 with an estimated £1.6m worth of the drug concealed in her suitcase.

She has maintained her innocence since her arrest, claiming she transported the drug under duress to protect her children, whom she said had been threatened.

Appeals to have her death sentence repealed have subsequently been rejected by both Indonesia’s high court and supreme court.

Speaking to a group of academics and students at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta on Tuesday, president Widodo said there would be “no excuse” for drug traffickers.

He said his tough stance is the “shock therapy” required to combat what he described as a drug “emergency” in the country.

“I will reject clemency requests submitted by 64 death [row inmates] convicted of drugs cases,” said the president.

President Widodo’s comments come on the back of his decision last week to deny clemency to five inmates on death row, reportedly for drug-charges.

The five inmates will be executed by a firing squad this month.

More than 100 Indonesian and foreign nationals are on death row here and 64 of those were sentenced for drug-related charges.

Among those are two Australians.

Fadillah Agus who represented Sandiford during her supreme court appeal last year – but is no longer her counsel – said the British woman refused to appeal for clemency because she had maintained her innocence.

“As far as I know she never applied for clemency because that would mean she was guilty,” Agus told the Guardian.

It is unclear whether Sandiford has any current legal representation in Indonesia but her former lawyer said there were only two options now left for the British woman.

“First she could submit a judicial review, but only if there is new evidence,” he said, “The only other possibility is to apply for clemency from the president.”

According to Agus, Sandiford’s mental condition was unstable and highly changeable when they were last in contact.

Sandiford previously appealed to the UK foreign office for financial help to fund her appeals but was told that she could only be provided with assistance through diplomatic channels.



Amnesty International has urged the Indonesian government to impose a moratorium on the five executions.

Data from the National Narcotics Agency shows that 47 traffickers on death row are foreigners.