Dawn LimbuWest of England
An agreement has been reached to allow two British prisoners convicted of drug smuggling to return home to the UK, the Indonesian government has said.
Lindsay Sandiford, 69, from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, had spent more than a decade on death row and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi, was serving a life sentence. Both are set to be transferred to the UK in about two weeks’ time.
Sandiford was sentenced to death on the Indonesian island of Bali in 2013, after she was convicted of trafficking drugs.
A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We are supporting two British Nationals detained in Indonesia and are in close contact with the Indonesian authorities to discuss their return to the UK.”
Customs officers found nearly five kilos of cocaine with a street value of £1.6m hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when she arrived on a flight from Thailand in 2012.
She admitted the offences but said she had agreed to carry the cocaine after a drug syndicate threatened to kill her son.
The Indonesian minister for law and human rights, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, said he had signed a deal with British foreign secretary Yvette Cooper for the transfer of the two British prisoners.
“We agreed to grant the transfers of the prisoners to the UK. The agreement has been signed,” Mr Yusril told reporters at a press conference in capital Jakarta earlier.
The pair will be handed over after the technical details of the transfer are agreed, which the minister said could take “around two weeks” to organise.
Speaking at the press conference, Mr Yusril said both prisoners are “currently facing problems.”
“The first one, Sandiford, is in poor health and has been examined by our doctors as well as by a doctor from the British consulate in Bali. She is seriously ill.
“The second, Shahab Shahabadi, although still young at 35 and serving a life sentence, is suffering from several serious health issues, particularly mental health disorders.”
Indonesia and the UK do not have a formal prisoner transfer arrangement; normally these require that repatriated prisoners serve out their terms in their home countries.
Sandiford was arrested at a time when the Indonesian authorities were imposing tougher penalties on drug smugglers and in 2015 two Australian men were executed after being convicted of smuggling heroin.
Additional reporting by Jonathan Head in Bangkok
