British grandmother jailed in Indonesia for drug smuggling to return to UK

A British grandmother who has spent more than a decade on death row in Indonesia after being convicted of drug smuggling can return to the UK, the Indonesian government has said.

Lindsay Sandiford, 69, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after nearly five kilos of cocaine with a street value of £1.6m were found in her 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.

An agreement between the Indonesian and British governments, announced on Tuesday, will allow her to return to the UK in about two weeks alongside British national Shahab Shahabadi.

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.”

Sandiford, from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, had faced the threat of execution by firing squad during her sentence in Indonesia.

Shahabadi, 35, had been serving a life sentence after being convicted of drug smuggling and both British prisoners are said to have been suffering from health problems.

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 pair.

“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.

They 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.

Jennifer Fleetwood, a criminologist at the University of London, was part of Sandiford’s appeal team in the initial case 12 years ago. She said it was good that the grandmother would be returning to the UK.

She said: “To undertake a prison sentence with the threat of execution, I can’t fathom how difficult that would be.

“Having spent time doing research in prisons overseas, I know that it’s really, really hard for people to serve a sentence abroad.

“They have huge distance from family for their significant language difficulties.

“But on top of that, often we see human rights abuses in prison, lack of access to health care.

“And as someone who is ageing with health needs, that’s a really, really tough punishment to serve. 12 years is a long, long time.”

Additional reporting by Jonathan Head in Bangkok