British grandmother on death row in Bali faces execution as new president pledges 'no mercy' for drug traffickers

Indonesia's seventh President Joko Widodo

Lindsay Sandiford is on death row for smuggling 1.6million pounds worth of cocaine into Bali and all appeals have been denied; Received grim news that Indonesia's new President will show no mercy

British grandmother Lindsay Sandiford, lingering on death row in a Bali jail, has received the grim news that Indonesia's new President will show no mercy and grant no pardons to drug traffickers.

The 57-year-old former legal secretary from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, was sentenced to death in January last year for trafficking cocaine worth 1.6 million pounds into Bali and all her appeals have been denied.

Her final hopes of avoiding death by firing squad rest with the Indonesian President - but the newly-elected leader of the world's largest Muslim nation, Joko Widodo, has made it clear he will be taking a tough stance against drug smugglers.

A spokesman for the Attorney General's Department told the Jakarta Globe that Mr Joko was not planning abolish capital punishment any time soon and the President would provide no clemency for people trafficking drugs into the country.

'The President says he will be firm,' said the spokesman. 'We want to send a warning to international drug syndicates that Indonesia doesn't want to be a stopping place, market place or even a place for producers of narcotics.'

It is not known whether the President's 'no mercy' stance will include prisoners who have been on death row for several years - but already the House of Representatives in Jakarta has said it wants the jails emptied of condemned prisoners.

'Show them mercy, or execute them quickly,' said a spokesman for a special committee of the House of Representatives. 'Our jails are bursting and condemned prisoners are not making it any easier.'

Mrs Sandiford will have heard the bad news of the new President's 'no mercy' decision through the prison grapevine. Inmates would have been told of the bad news by visitors and it would have spread immediately to the cells.

As a sign of the President's determination to execute condemned prisoners quickly, the Attorney General's office said today that five inmates currently on death row will be shot within the next four weeks.

Mr Basuni Masyarif, deputy attorney general for general crimes, said the condemned prisoners had all exhausted their chances for appeal as well as failing to secure a pardon from President Joko.

Mrs Sandiford's plea for a pardon is still with the President's office, having been lodged with the former leader, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Of the 5 prisoners who will now be shot before the end of the year, Mr Busuni declined to give details except to say that 2 are Nigerians and all are in prisons away from Bali - so Mrs Sandiford is not among those scheduled for immediate execution.

Indonesia resumed the execution for death row prisoners in 2013, ending a 4-year moratorium. Capital punishment is an option for Indonesian judges as a sentencing option for a number of convictions including drug trafficking, murder, sedition and terrorism.

By law, condemned prisoners must be informed of their execution 72 hours before they are led away to a deserted place and ordered to stand, or sit, in front of the firing squad.

Campaigners against the death penalty said that up to 2013 there were were 113 prisoners awaiting execution, but since then a further 16 have been sentenced to death.

Mrs Sandiford pleaded guilty to attempting to smuggle the cocaine through Bali's international airport in 2012 following a flight from Bangkok, claiming that she had been under pressure to carry the narcotics because her adult sons had received death threats.

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Source: Daily Mail, November 29, 2014

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