Kuala Lumpur: The fate of a NSW grandmother convicted of drug trafficking in Malaysia will be decided by the country's highest court.
The court will next Tuesday decide whether Sydney woman Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto should be hanged for her crimes, when it rules on her appeal against drug trafficking convictions.
Her case has won widespread sympathy after judges heard how she was set up through an online boyfriend scam.
She had been found not guilty in a lower court but prosecutors appealed the verdict and won, and the mother of four was sentenced to death.
But the final appeal, to be heard in the Federal Court, has been complicated by announced changes in laws governing executions since her conviction in May last year.
Use of the death penalty is suspended and legislation is pending that will make it no longer mandatory for the courts to impose the death sentence on traffickers, instead, whether to send convicts to the gallows will be left to the discretion of the judges.
Her lawyer, Muhammad Farhan Shafee, said he was confident Exposto, from Cabramatta West, would receive a full acquittal, after describing the guilty verdict as "perverse".
Exposto was caught with more than one kilogram of crystal methamphetamine, also known as ice, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on December 7, 2014.
Trafficking is defined as anyone caught with at least 50 grams of crystal meth.
The defence argued she was the victim of an internet romance scam by a man who identified himself as "Captain Daniel Smith", a US soldier stationed in Afghanistan. They had arranged to meet in Shanghai where he was to lodge documents for his retirement from the military.
He did not show but Exposto befriended a stranger and she testified that he had asked her to take a black backpack, which she thought contained only clothes, to Melbourne shortly before leaving.
During the stopover in Kuala Lumpur, customs officers noticed something green during a routine scan and Exposto volunteered her bags up for a search. Officers then noticed the stitching inside the backpack was not matching, tore it open and found the packages of meth.
The prosecution argued she had been wilfully blind, said her defence was simply made up and that she had engaged in a "sly game".
In finding her guilty a bench of three judges noted the ultimate penalty was mandatory but added she had the right to appeal and wished her luck.
Harsh penalties for drug trafficking were introduced in Southeast Asia after intense lobbying by the United States amid its war on drugs and a strategy to curb heroine and opium smuggling out of the notorious Golden Triangle in the 1970s and 1980s.
Among those caught in the crackdown on narcotics were Australian drug traffickers Kevin Barlow and Brian Chambers, who became the first Westerners sent to the Malaysian gallows, in 1986.Relations between Australia and Malaysia hit a low point and the then Mahathir government accused Western countries of double standards.
Diplomats said they were closely watching the trial and the Australian government has provided consular assistance.
Phil Robertson, Deputy Asia Director at Human Rights Watch, said earlier promises to entirely abolish the death penalty have unfortunately been dropped and Exposto will still have to face judges to determine her final punishment.
"No one should face a death sentence for a drugs-related offence, so Malaysia's Attorney- General should work with the courts to ensure any death penalty verdict against her is commuted to a prison term if she is determined to be guilty of the charges against her," he said.
"It's pretty clear Malaysia's government is moving to abolish all forms of mandatory death penalty sentencing - and such an action could not come a moment too soon for Maria Exposto."
Source: AAP, Luke Hunt, November 20, 2019
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