UK | Lindsay Sandiford back in London

Two British drug convicts, including a grandmother who had been on death row in Indonesia for more than a decade, arrived back in the UK on Friday.

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.

Lindsay Sandiford, 69, was sentenced to death on the tourist island of Bali in 2013 for smuggling $2.14 million worth of cocaine into Indonesia.

She 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 Friday.

Sandiford left Heathrow's Terminal 4 in a wheelchair on Friday accompanied by security staff, without speaking and covering her face with her jacket, AFP correspondents saw.

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

On Thursday, the Indonesian official, 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 $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, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, signed a deal with British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper last month for their transfer.

Both prisoners are suffering from severe health problems.

Yusril said last month that Sandiford was "seriously ill", while Shahabadi was "suffering from various serious illnesses, including mental health issues".

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, 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 Usman Hamid said in a statement Friday.

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

Source: uk.news.yahoo.com, Joshua Nichol, November 7, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

Comments

Arizona | Man who murdered pastor crucifixion style requests plea deal after parents killed in plane crash

Adam Sheafe, the California man who admitted to killing a New River, Arizona, pastor in a crucifixion-style attack, has asked prosecutors to offer him a plea deal that would result in a natural life sentence rather than the death penalty he had previously sought. Advisory council attorneys representing Sheafe sent a formal plea offer to prosecutors this week, about two weeks after his father and stepmother died in a plane crash at Marana Airport on April 8, according to 12 News. Sheafe, 51, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of William Schonemann, 76, pastor of New River Bible Church, who was found dead inside his home last April.

US Department of Justice announces decision to resume federal executions

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Friday that it will resume the federal use of capital punishment and that it is seeking death sentences against 44 defendants. DOJ also said that it will use firing squads, electrocution, or nitrogen asphyxiation if the drug used in lethal injection is unavailable. The announcement follows the Restoring and Strengthening the Federal Death Penalty report, published on April 24. The report is especially critical of the moratorium on federal executions, ordered by Attorney General Merrick Garland in July 2021, to remain until the death penalty could be conducted “fairly and humanely.” Garland was concerned about the federal lethal injection protocol, which uses only one drug, pentobarbital, and the possibility that it causes “unnecessary pain and suffering.” In response to Garland’s moratorium and concerns, President Biden commuted the sentences of 37 prisoners on federal death row, leaving only three prisoners.

China | Man sentenced to death for murder executed in Yunnan

Tian Yongming, who was initially sentenced for a series of violent crimes and then had his sentence changed to death early this year, has been executed in Yunnan province following approval from China's top court. The execution was carried out by the Intermediate People's Court in Yuxi, Yunnan, on Tuesday, with local prosecutors supervising the process. Before the execution, Tian was allowed to meet with his family members. The case dates back to September 1996, when Tian was sentenced to nine years in prison for the rape and attempted murder of his sister-in-law. After his release on July 15, 2002, he plotted revenge against the woman. On the night of Nov 13, 2002, he broke into her home armed with a knife.

20 Minutes to Death: Witness to the Last Execution in France

The following document is a firsthand account of the final moments of Hamida Djandoubi, a convicted murderer executed by guillotine at Marseille’s Baumettes Prison on September 10, 1977. The record—dated September 9—was written by Monique Mabelly, a judge appointed by the state to witness the proceedings. Djandoubi’s execution would ultimately be the last carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981. At the time, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing—who had publicly voiced his "deep aversion to the death penalty" prior to his election—rejected Djandoubi’s appeal for clemency. Choosing to let "justice take its course," the President allowed the execution to proceed, just as he had in two previous cases during his term: Christian Ranucci , executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein , executed on June 23, 1977. Hamida Djandoubi , a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet. He was execu...

Florida executes Chadwick Scott Willacy

STARKE, Fla. -- A Florida man who set his neighbor on fire after she returned from work to find him burglarizing her home was executed Tuesday evening. Chadwick Scott Willacy, 58, received a three-drug injection and was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke for the 1990 killing of Marlys Sather. It was Florida's fifth execution this year. The curtain to the execution chamber went up promptly at the scheduled 6 p.m. time, and the lethal injection got underway two minutes later, after Willacy made a brief statement.

Iran to execute first woman linked to mass protests after ‘forced confessions’

Bita Hemmati and three others have been sentenced to death for 'collusion' and 'propaganda.' Advocates claim the charges are baseless, citing a secretive process and state-televised interrogations. Iranian authorities are preparing to execute Bita Hemmati, the first woman sentenced to death in connection with the mass protests in Tehran in late December and January, according to the US-based non-profit the Human Rights Activists News Agency. Judge Iman Afshari, of Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, sentenced Hemmati, her husband, Mohammadreza Majidi Asl, and Behrouz Zamaninezhad, and Kourosh Zamaninezhad to death on the charge of “operational action for the hostile government of the United States and hostile groups,” in addition to discretionary imprisonment period of five years on the charge of “assembly and collusion against national security.”

Tennessee | Man set to be executed files motion claiming DNA evidence will exonerate him

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Attorneys for death row inmate Tony Carruthers filed a motion in Shelby County Criminal Court seeking immediate DNA testing on evidence they claim will prove his innocence in a 1994 triple murder. Carruthers is scheduled for execution on May 12. He was convicted and sentenced to death for the kidnapping and murders of 24-year-old Marcellos Anderson, 17-year-old Delois Anderson, and 21-year-old Frederick Scarborough. Prosecutors at trial alleged the victims were buried alive in a Memphis cemetery as part of a drug-related robbery.

Florida Schedules Two Executions for Late April

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Governor Ron DeSantis has directed the Florida Department of Corrections to move forward with two executions scheduled for late April 2026, marking a significant ramp-up in the state's use of capital punishment. The scheduled deaths of Chadwick Willacy and James Ernest Hitchcock follow a series of landmark judicial rulings that have kept both men on death row for decades.

Singapore executes man for trafficking 1kg of cannabis

SINGAPORE — Singaporean authorities executed Omar bin Yacob Bamadhaj at Changi Prison on Thursday, April 16, 2026, following his 2019 conviction for importing 1,009.1 grams of cannabis. Bamadhaj, 41, though some reports have cited his age as 46, was arrested on July 12, 2018, during a routine search at the Woodlands Checkpoint. Officers discovered the narcotics wrapped in plastic and hidden within his vehicle as he attempted to enter Singapore from Malaysia. Under the Misuse of Drugs Act, the threshold for the mandatory death penalty involving cannabis is 500 grams, a limit this shipment exceeded by more than double.

Florida | Man avoids death penalty in Daytona Beach triple murder

Jerome Anderson shot and killed Antoine Melvin, 42, John Burch, 65, and Patrick Lassiter, 35, in 2023. A man pleaded no contest to a triple-murder in Daytona Beach and was sentenced April 20 to three consecutive life terms in prison as part of a plea deal in which he avoided a possible death sentence. Jerome Anderson, 41, was indicted on three counts of first-degree murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon in the 2023 triple-slaying. Anderson pleaded no contest to the three first-degree murder charges April 20 and, in exchange, Assistant State Attorney Andrew Urbanak agreed not to continue to pursue the death penalty.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog