British grandmother on Indonesia death row arrives back in London

Summary

• Lindsay Sandiford, a British grandmother sentenced to death in Bali for smuggling cocaine worth US$2.14 million, has returned to the UK.
• Sandiford and Shahab Shahabadi were released on humanitarian grounds due to severe health problems, following a UK-Indonesia transfer deal.
• Upon arrival, they will undergo health assessments in the UK, where they will be subject to British law, though Indonesia's original legal decision is respected.

LONDON - A British grandmother who had been on death row for smuggling US$2.14 million worth of cocaine into Indonesia arrived back in the UK on Nov 7, AFP correspondents reported.

Lindsay Sandiford, 69, was sentenced to death on the tourist island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of drug trafficking.

Indonesia has some of the world’s toughest drug laws, but has moved to release more than half a dozen high-profile detainees in the last year.

Sandiford was released on humanitarian grounds along with Shahab Shahabadi, 36, who had been serving a life sentence for drug offences after his arrest in 2014.

Both left Bali on a Qatar Airways flight to London via Doha, an official from Indonesia’s law and human rights ministry confirmed to AFP on Nov 7.

Sandiford left Heathrow’s Terminal 4 in a wheelchair on Nov 7, accompanied by security staff, without speaking and covering her face with her jacket.

“Two British nationals who were detained in Indonesia have now returned to the UK,” said a spokesperson for the British Foreign Office.

On Nov 6, the Indonesian official, Mr I Nyoman Gede Surya Mataram, told a handover ceremony at Bali’s Kerobokan jail that the pair’s “detention will be moved to the United Kingdom” under the deal.

The United Kingdom government would now be “fully responsible for the legal decision that will be given there, but still respecting our legal decision”, he added.

Health problems

Sandiford was jailed after Indonesian customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom of her suitcase when she landed in Bali in 2012.

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

The repatriation comes after Indonesia’s senior law and human rights minister, Mr Yusril Ihza Mahendra, signed a deal with British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper in October for their transfer.

Both prisoners are suffering from severe health problems.

Mr Yusril said in October that Sandiford was “seriously ill”, while Shahabadi was “suffering from various serious illnesses, including mental health issues”.

Mr Matthew Downing, Britain’s deputy ambassador to Indonesia, said the two were being repatriated on “humanitarian grounds”.

“When they first arrive in the UK, the priority will be about their health,” he said.

“So they’ll be going through a health assessment, and any treatment and rehabilitation that they need.”

The two will be “governed by the law and procedures of the UK” government upon their return, Mr Downing said.

‘Goodbye letters’

Sandiford’s case caught tabloid attention in Britain, with one newspaper publishing in 2015 an article in which she detailed her fear of death.

“My execution is imminent, and I know I might die at any time now,” she wrote in the Mail on Sunday. “I have started to write goodbye letters to members of my family.”

As of August, nearly 600 inmates were on death row in Indonesia, according to the rights group KontraS, citing official data.

Among them are around 90 foreigners, according to the immigration and correction ministry.

Indonesia last carried out executions in 2016, killing one of its own citizens and three Nigerian drug convicts by firing squad.

President Prabowo Subianto’s administration has repatriated several high-profile inmates since he took office in 2024, including the last five members of the so-called “Bali Nine” drug ring.

French national Serge Atlaoui,
61, was returned home in February after 18 years on death row.

In December, Filipina inmate Mary Jane Veloso
tearfully reunited with her family after nearly 15 years on death row.

Human rights groups have lauded the government’s move.

“Repatriating foreign nationals who are facing the death penalty in Indonesia indirectly saves them from the threat of execution if the death penalty has been abolished in their home country,” Amnesty International Indonesia’s executive director, Mr Usman Hamid, said in a statement on Nov 7.

He argued it could help win “the release of Indonesian citizens who are facing the death penalty abroad”. AFP