Indonesia to repatriate 2 Britons, including a grandma on death row

Indonesia signed an agreement on Oct 21 to repatriate two British nationals, including a seriously ill grandmother on death row for more than a decade on drug charges, a minister said.

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Indonesia has some of the world’s toughest drug laws but has moved to release half a dozen high-profile detainees, including a Filipino mother on death row and the last five members of the so-called “Bali Nine” drug ring.

Lindsay Sandiford, who is now in her late 60s, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of drug trafficking.

Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when she arrived in Bali on a flight from Thailand in 2012.

Sandiford admitted to the offences, but said she agreed to carry the narcotics after a syndicate threatened to kill her son.

In 2013, she lost an appeal against her death sentence.