Can drug-smuggling grandmother escape the Bali firing squad? British woman faces years in overcrowded prison as lawyers fight to change her death sentence



Lindsay Sandiford, 56, was stopped after flight to Bali from Bangkok



She was arrested in May and said she had been coerced into carrying drugs

Prosecutors had called for 15 year sentence but judges chose death penalty

Three other Britons were arrested as part of drug smuggling gang



Rachel Dougall, 39, and Paul Beales, 39, given lenient sentences last month

Antiques restorer Julian Ponder, 43, may still face death penalty tomorrow



There are 40 foreigners on death row in Indonesia, but none killed since 2008

Sandiford is one of 12 Britons who face the death penalty abroad

A British grandmother was sentenced to death by firing squad yesterday for smuggling cocaine worth £1.6million into the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

Former legal secretary Lindsay Sandiford broke down in tears and cried ‘no, no, no’ after a panel of judges in Bali ordered her execution.



They said she had shamed Bali’s tourism reputation by taking 10.6lb of cocaine in the lining of her suitcase through the island’s international airport.



Sandiford, from Gloucestershire, was arrested in May last year as she entered Indonesia on a flight from Thai capital Bangkok with £1.6million worth of the Class A drug stuffed in her luggage.

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Distraught: Lindsay Sandiford of Britain reacts inside a holding cell after hearing her sentence to death, which she is due to appeal

State prosecutors had called for the 56-year-old housewife to be jailed for 15 years but there was a gasp in the Bali courtroom yesterday when she was told she would be killed for her crime.

Sandiford slumped back stunned as the judges announced the shock sentence which, if carried out, will see her led to a jungle clearing on a small island known as 'Indonesia's Alcatraz', where she will be blindfolded, tied to a pole and executed by firing squad .

Mrs Sandiford was heard to cry in anguish from under her beige-coloured sarong, marked with a traditional Balinese pattern, as the sentence was passed.

The 56-year-old also wept and declined to speak to reporters on her way back to prison.

Mrs Sandiford is originally from Redcar on Teesside, married and moved to London, and later lived in Gloucestershire before moving to India several years ago.

She is one of 12 Britons currently facing the death penalty abroad, according to the Foreign Office.

In shock: This is the moment Briton Lindsay Sandiford heard that she would receive the death penalty for drug smuggling

But charity Reprieve, which represents many of them, told MailOnline that they believe this figure only refers to those convicted of drugs offences and there are 40 British citizens on death row around the world.



Lindsay Sandiford is the second British national to be sentenced to death for drug offences in Indonesia in the last six months. Gareth Cashmore, was sentenced to death by firing squad for drugs offences in October.

Mrs Sandiford had hoped she would be spared execution, the usual sentence for trafficking this amount of drugs, because of her age and for her co-operation with authorities on the holiday isle.

'We object to the sentence. We never expected that our client would get the death penalty,' her lawyer Esra Karokaro said.



She had claimed she was coerced into the crime because her children were threatened.

But in its verdict, a judge panel headed by Amser Simanjuntak concluded that Sandiford has damaged the image of Bali as a tourism destination and weakened the government's fight against drugs.

'We found no reason to lighten her sentence,' he said. A spokeswoman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said: 'We can confirm that a British national is facing the death penalty in Indonesia.

'We remain in close contact with that national and continue to provide consular assistance.

'The UK remains strongly opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances.' Behind the scenes the Government is said to being cautious about its protests and fears 'going in all guns blazing' could make her situation even worse. Foreign Office Minister Hugo Swire has told MPs the Government 'strongly object to the death penalty' and told the Commons she had at least two further avenues of appeal through the courts and also the chance to apply for presidential clemency.

Mr Swire said 'repeated representations' had been made to the Indonesian authorities and Foreign Secretary William Hague had already raised the case with his counterpart in the country.

Disbelief: Briton Sandiford speaks with her sister Hillary Parsons as they digest what has happened in Bali yesterday Death sentence: The court told the grandmother she had shamed Bali's tourism reputation by smuggling cocaine in the lining of her suitcase through the island's international airport Sandiford will appeal within the next 14 days and her hopes of escaping the firing squad now depend on a series of legal challenges and, finally, with a plea for mercy to the president if all her legal channels become exhausted.

There are around 114 prisoners on death row in Indonesia, at least 40 of them foreigners, most of them convicted of drug crimes. Several are Australians.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has granted clemency to four drug offenders on death row since he took office in 2004. Crushed: Lindsay Sandiford leaves the court smoking a cigarette and trying to cover her face as she heads back to prison Happier times: New pictures released yesterday show the grandmother in her forties before her current woes in Bali

Wearing a white blouse and dark slacks - with a locally-made bracelet on her left wrist - Sandiford was ushered to a holding cell where she was seen slumped on a seat, her eyes hidden behind dark glasses.

TIMELINE: LINDSAY SANDIFORD'S JOURNEY TO BALI'S DEATH ROW

Early 2012: Lindsay Sandiford, who had been living in Gloucester, sets up home in India.

May 17 2012: Mrs Sandiford allegedly meets two members of the drug syndicate in Bangkok, Thailand, and collects a suitcase packed with 4.8 kilos of cocaine worth £1.7 million.

May 19: She flies to Denpasar airport, the main airport on Bali, where customs officials X-ray the suitcase and find the drugs. She is arrested.

May 20: She is interrogated by drug squad officers who suggest it will be in her interest to tell all she knows about the syndicate. She agrees.

May 20 - 24: She stays at a hotel arranged by the police, when she reveals everything and agrees to lead officers to the town of Candidasa, on the east of the island, where Paul Beales is arrested.

May 25: Her information leads to the arrest of Julian Ponder and his partner Rachel Dougall, described by locals as 'the King and Queen of Bali' because of their extravagant lifestyle.

May 25 - Sept 27: Mrs Sandiford is held for weeks in a small cell at police headquarters in Denpasar, telling all she knows about the other three arrested Britons.

August: She is moved to Kerobokan prison, where, because she is so important to the police case, she is held in solitary confinement.

Early September: She is believed to have written to the British Embassy and Indonesian government officials claiming she is being badly treated and does not have enough food or water. September 27: Mrs Sandiford makes her first court appearance, accused of drug trafficking. She is tearful and covers her head with a scarf, maintaining that she had agreed to carry the suitcase because her son Elliot, 21, was being threatened by a drug gang.

September to January 14: She appears in court several times, her lawyers pleading for leniency because of her co-operation. The prosecution agree that because she has co-operated with the investigation they want her jailed for 'only' 15 years, rather than receive the mandatory death sentence.

January 14: In a 'last chance' hearing, her lawyer pleads for even less than the 15 years because her son was being threatened and she was coerced into carrying the cocaine.

January 22: She, her lawyer and even the prosecution are stunned by the death sentence, one of the judges said she had brought a bad reputation to Bali's tourism. Her demeanour suggested a woman in great shock - she spun about in the small cell for a moment or two as if uncertain what to do, before prison officers escorted her through a side door with other prisoners. She was then driven to jail - and to an uncertain future. Sandiford, originally from Redcar on Teesside, was one of a 'British gang of four’ who were caught and prosecuted after she tried to smuggle £1.6million of cocaine into the country from Thailand. The usual sentence for the amount of cocaine found in the lining of her suitcase – 4.8kg – is execution . Antiques restorer Julian Ponder, 43, from Brighton, his 39-year-old partner Rachel Dougall and 39-year-old Paul Beales, were also arrested for the crime. Sandiford had told her lawyer, Mr Ezra Karo Karo, that she believed she had been made the scapegoat because it was the other three members of the gang who had a bigger role in the operation than herself. She immediately confessed that she had been told to hand over the drugs to Miss Dougall – and in a sting operation they followed her as she went about contacting Miss Dougall, Miss Dougall’s partner Julian Ponder, and Paul Beales.

But the case against Miss Dougall and Mr Beales started to crumble when police failed to find any physical evidence to connect Mrs Sandiford with the other three suspects. Police sources said that all conversations between Miss Dougall and Mrs Sandiford were carried out through mobile phones. But police had failed to retrieve a SIM card during a raid on Miss Dougall’s Bali villa, meaning there was no physical evidence. Insisting that she was just a courier, forced to make the drug run because of threats against her children in Britain, Mrs Sandiford pointed an accusing finger at two of the other members of the ‘gang of four’.

She said that she had met Miss Dougall and Mr Beales in Bangkok before she took the flight to Bali. Mr Beales, she said, had placed the drugs in the lining of her suitcase and the actual owner of the cocaine was Miss Dougall. Both denied the accusation.

Dougall received a one-year jail sentence in the Denpasar District Court last month. She could be on her way back to the UK by April, to be reunited with her daughter, because she had already been in jail for eight months awaiting trial. At the time of her arrest, Dougall insisted she was the victim of a 'fit-up' and Ponder claimed he was 'trapped'. Beales, a long-time Bali resident, was also spared a harsh sentence when judges gave him to four years for possession of a small amount of hashish. Showing leniency to Mr Beales at his trial late last year, presiding judge John Tony Hutauruk said: ‘The defendant had admitted his wrongdoings and had promised not to repeat them.’

Mrs Sandiford has also admitted her wrongdoings, but her punishment has been far more severe. The trial of the fourth Briton Ponder is still in the courts and there is speculation among legal circles in Bali that, as one of the alleged key players in the smuggling operation, he will also receive the death sentence. Ponder's lawyer claimed he was told that Sandiford was delivering a present for his child's birthday and, when he met her to receive the gift, police officers arrested him.

A verdict is expected in the trial of Ponder tomorrow. He is accused of receiving the drugs in Bali, which has a busy bar and nightclub scene where party drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy are bought and sold between foreigners. Gang of four: Rachel Dougall, left, was jailed for a year after her charges were lessened while Paul Beales, right, was imprisoned for four years for his role in the plot

On the face of it, bespectacled Mrs Sandiford, a mother of two who once worked as legal secretary, could not have been a more unlikely drugs courier.

After growing up in Cleveland, she moved to London where she married. She is now separated but has two sons, Lewis, 23, and Eliot, 21. Sentencing: Briton Julian Ponder could be sentenced as early as tomorrow and could also face the death penalty For some years Mrs Sandiford rented a £275,000 detached property in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, where neighbours have less than fond memories of her. Some have described her as a ‘neighbour from hell’. A man of 63 who lived next door said she was evicted around five years ago for failing to pay rent. A former colleague of Lindsay Sandiford said she should have 'expected the consequences' of flouting Bali's strict laws.

Maria Swift, 47, who worked with Sandiford 10 years ago, said her ex-boss would have been well aware of the risks she was taking. Mum-of-seven Maria, of Cheltenham, worked for Sandiford as a secretary at DTS Legal in the town. 'When you go into these countries it does state that the importation of drugs is punishable by death and she should have seen it, she's not a stupid woman, she would have known,' she said.

'I'm a firm believer that the law is the law and it is there for a reason, this is the ultimate punishment and she should and would have known that could have happened to her.

'I do feel sorry for her though because no one should be sentenced to death, but she got caught and she should have expected the consequences to come with it.'

Neighbours on the quiet street in Cheltenham where Sandiford lived were surprised to learn of her fate.

One local resident said: 'She wasn't a nice person. She caused a lot of trouble when she lived here, her and her sons. She definitely wasn't a normal housewife.

'I don't know why she got herself into that situation, with all those drugs, but she's broken the law and has to pay the penalty, I suppose.' Reaction: The grandmother from Gloucestershire attempts to shield her face from photographers as she cries following her death sentence Painful: Lindsay Sandiford was pictured struggling to comprehend what had happened, especially as prosecutors had called for her to get 15 years not the death penalty

Claims: Lindsay Sandiford listens to her interpreter during her verdict trial at Denpasar district court in Bali Another neighbour, who lived on the street at the same time as Sandiford, said her house was always disorganised, with a rubbish-strewn front garden.

He said: 'There were never any curtains in the window, and then this one time there was a blooming great hole in the front window.

'It struck me as a not very happy house, if you know what I mean. It's what I would call "disorganised"

'There were always people coming round and I saw the police parked outside a few times.' Passing comment on her crimes and sentencing, the neighbour, who asked not to be named, said she must have known the risks involved in trafficking drugs in South East Asia.

He added: 'At the end of the day, she probably knew what the risks were to what she was doing. We all know what the risks are.

'I don't suppose they'll execute her though - I reckon her sentence will be reduced on appeal.'

Even Mrs Sandiford’s mother, Audrey, refuses to have anything to do with her. She has lived abroad for many years and has remarried. She asked us not to reveal the place where she now resides.

‘I don’t go to England or have anything to do with Lindsay. I got tired of being a piggy bank and realised I was better off away from them,’ said the 86-year-old last June. She says she did not know Lindsay had been arrested and was ‘absolutely horrified. It’s a complete shock’. Expectant: The defendant walks out of the cell at the courtroom with another despondent woman in the background awaiting her fate Witnesses: People in the courtroom heard her cry 'no, no, no' as she was told her sentence and began to spin round uncontrollably Human rights charity Reprieve, which is assisting Sandiford, urged the Government to support her appeal.

Investigator Harriet McCulloch said: 'Lindsay has always maintained that she only agreed to carry the package to Bali after receiving threats against the lives of her family.

'She is clearly not a drug kingpin - she has no money to pay for a lawyer, for the travel costs of defence witnesses or even for essentials like food and water.

'She has co-operated fully with the Indonesian authorities but has been sentenced to death while the gang operating in the UK, Thailand and Indonesia remain free to target other vulnerable people.

'Lindsay must file an appeal within the next 14 days and it is vital that the British Government do everything possible to support Lindsay's appeal against the death sentence.' A spokeswoman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said: 'We can confirm that a British national is facing the death penalty in Indonesia. 'We remain in close contact with that national and continue to provide consular assistance.

'The UK remains strongly opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances.' Fate: Sandiford faces life in he much-feared Kerobokan jail in Bali, where foreign criminals including ones on death row are incarcerated Squalor: Prisoners are caged here in packed cells, which are filthy and fed gruel unless their family brings in food for them

The judges said there were no mitigating circumstances in Sandiford's case – despite a list of ‘reasons’ her lawyer had submitted last week and the defendant did not appear to care about the consequences of her actions.



‘It’s very rare that judges deliver a sentence so much harsher than what the prosecution has recommended,’ her lawyer said after the verdict.



Originally from Redcar but in recent times living in Gloucestershire, will now spend months – and perhaps years – in Bali's notorious Kerobokan prison as the appeal process against the death sentence stumbles through the Indonesian court system.

The judges had refused to consider the mitigating pleas put forward last week by Mrs Sandiford’s lawyer.

Mr Karo Karo said that there was medical evidence from a psychiatric hospital in England to show that since she was five years old Lindsay had been depressed and suffered a mental disorder in the wake of her parents’ divorce.



‘That condition could cause a middle-aged woman to be easiljy exploited by a drug dealing syndicate,’ Mr Karo had told the court.

Appeal: Lindsay Sandiford covers her face as she arrives for her verdict trial and says she will fight her execution

The lawyer also pointed out that she had acted only as a courier and was not involved any further.



‘Moreover, based on the witnesses that were presented to the previous trial, it was stated that our client did it because she was forced or threatened by that international drugs syndicate,’ Mr Karo said.



He said after that plea last week that he expected the judges to show leniency to Mrs Sandiford – particularly as she had also apologised to Bali and expressed her deep sorrow both verbally and in written form.

Sandiford previously told the court she became involved only because 'the lives of my children were in danger'.

In her witness statement, she said: 'I would like to begin by apologising to the Republic of Indonesia and the Indonesian people for my involvement.

'I would never have become involved in something like this but the lives of my children were in danger and I felt I had to protect them.'

During the trial Sandiford's lawyer read out a statement from her son which said: 'I love my mother very much and have a very close relationship with her.

'I know that she would do anything to protect me. I cannot imagine what I would do if she was sentenced to death in relation to these charges.'

Amnesty International UK Campaigns Director Tim Hancock said: 'It is extremely sad to hear that judges have decided to give Lindsay Sandiford a death sentence – despite the fact that the prosecution weren’t even asking for it. She is the second British citizen sentenced to death for drug offences in the last six months – an extremely worrying trend.



'The death penalty is the ultimate inhuman punishment, and Amnesty never condones its use, but handing out a penalty of death by firing squad for a non-lethal crime, is cruel in the extreme.



'Amnesty opposes the death penalty in all cases and urges the Indonesian government to scrap this punishment from its books and impose an official moratorium on all executions so that no other individuals face the death penalty there.'



Sandiford's MP said he would seek to raise her sentence with Foreign Secretary William Hague during Foreign Office Questions in the House of Commons this morning.



Martin Horwood, Lib Dem MP for Cheltenham, in Gloucestershire, where she previously lived, said the sentence came as a shock to a lot of people, as Indonesian prosecutors had not sought it.



'The days of the death penalty ought to be past. This is not the way that a country that now values democracy and human rights should really be behaving,' he told BBC News.



'I imagine all those who know Lindsay will be extremely worried and concerned about this development.



'When the prosecutors asked for something less than the death sentence, for a custodial sentence, then I guess I'm afraid some of us perhaps relaxed a little and this has come as a real shock that the judges have actually delivered a sentence which is obviously much, much harsher than the one that was actually requested by prosecutors.'

Case: This is the villa in Bali used as the home of Rachel Dougall and Julian Ponder, Britons also arrested and accused of drug smuggling £1.6million of cocaine

Hiding: Sandiford, 56, was stopped at Bali Airport last May with 4.8kg of cocaine worth £1.6 million before being paraded in front of the press with the drugs

A university professor and expert on women in the international drug trade who submitted expert evidence during the trial said she was shocked by the 'completely disproportionate' sentence.



Jennifer Fleetwood, a lecturer in criminology at the University of Kent, said it was very likely that Sandiford had been coerced into acting as a drug mule.



'The prosecution had asked for 15 years, which I considered to be high but not unexpected, so it's very surprising that the judge has imposed a punishment higher than what the prosecution asked for,' she said.



DEATH ROW IN A BALI JAIL: LIFE IN THE NOTORIOUS KEROBOKAN PRISON Kerobokan prison is in the Bali capital, Denpasar, and has been nicknamed 'hell on earth' by many who have been sent there.

It has notoriously poor conditions, with its white-washed walls, topped with barbed wire, all stained with mildew, while inside it is unmercifully claustrophobic.

Crowded cells are filled with all manner of criminals of all nationalities and unless friends and relatives bring food, they must sustain themselves on meals of prison gruel.

And for those on death row, the procedure they follow is depressingly familiar at the prison where at least two of the Bali bombers were executed by firing squad.

On their last day they will be woken early — certainly before dawn — handcuffed to prison officers and led out of the jail for the last time to a van.

It will travel through the deserted streets before cutting down a jungle track and stopping close to a beach or orchard.

From that point on, every chilling step is spelled out in Indonesia’s 1964 death penalty regulations, known as Penetapan Presiden No 2.

The regulations state: ‘Once arriving at the place of their death, the condemned is blindfolded (although they can choose not to be).’

Most prisoners ask to die standing up, their hands tied behind their backs to a pole, but they can also choose to sit or lie down.

A ten or twenty-member squad of the Indonesian Mobile Brigade, who have passed psychological tests to ready them for the task, will be assigned to shoot a prisoner.

But in order to preserve their sanity, only two of them will have live 5.5mm bullets, the rest being blanks.

None of the firing squad knows who has actually fired the fatal shot to the heart, but having only two live bullets means, of course, that instant death is not necessarily guaranteed.

In that case, the law states that: ‘If after the shooting the condemned still shows signs they are not yet dead, the Commander immediately gives the order to the head of the firing squad to let off a tembakan pengakhir (a coup de grace) by pressing the barrel of the gun against the temple of the condemned, right above their ear,’ and firing. Indonesia does not reveal how many prisoners have been executed, but human rights groups have confirmed that in 2009, the country executed 13 people, three of the Bali bombers in 2008, one person in 2007 and three in 2006.

There are at least 120 people on death row for crimes that are almost all murder or drug trafficking.

VIDEO: LINDSAY SANDIFORD TOLD SHE FACES EXECUTION IN BALI

VIDEO: BRITISH GRANDMOTHER ARRIVES AT COURT TO HEAR SENTENCE







