Death Penalty News

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.

The British national, 69, could be free to return home following an agreement between Indonesia and the UK A British grandmother who was facing a death sentence in Bali for smuggling a large haul of cocaine into the island will be freed, more than a decade after her arrest. Lindsay Sandiford, 69, is currently being held in the notorious Kerobokan prison, which holds around 1,000 inmates. Sandiford, from Redcar in Teesside, could be free to return home as soon as Tuesday after an Indonesian government source told AFP that an agreement had been reached with the UK government.

Three British nationals accused of smuggling over two pounds of cocaine into Indonesia were charged Tuesday in a court on the tourist island of Bali. They face the death penalty under the country's strict drug laws. Convicted drug smugglers in Indonesia are sometimes executed by firing squad. Jonathan Christopher Collyer, 28, and Lisa Ellen Stocker, 29, were arrested on Feb. 1 after customs officers halted them at the X-ray machine after finding suspicious items in their luggage disguised as food packages, said prosecutor I Made Dipa Umbara.

Taxpayers are set to foot the bill for assistance offered to an Australian man facing the death penalty in Bali for alleged drug smuggling. The 43-year-old son of former Queensland Senior Constable Les Ahchee was arrested in Bali last Thursday after he was allegedly caught collecting two parcels sent from the UK. About 1.8kg of cocaine was allegedly hidden inside two Lindt chocolate boxes, each containing 54 individual packets with 8.3g of cocaine each. The former tech manager, originally from Cairns, has allegedly tested positive for drugs while in police custody.

A British drugs mule grandmother on Indonesia's death row is so convinced she will be freed from prison that she has started given her clothes away to other inmates.  Lindsay Sandiford, 67, has been incarcerated in a cramped cell inside Bali's hellish Kerobokan prison since 2013 where she is facing execution by firing squad.  The grandmother-of-two was sentenced to death for attempting to smuggle £1.6million worth of cocaine into Indonesia's capital by stuffing it into the lining of her suitcase.  But her pals say she has now 'slumped into depression' as she thought she would have been released by now due to a change in the country's law. 

A British man is facing the death penalty for allegedly dealing a kilo of MDMA in Bali. Thomas Parker was seen for the first time since his January arrest on Thursday, paraded in front of media in an orange jumpsuit in Denpasar. The 32-year-old could face a firing squad if he is found guilty of trying to push the 1.055kg of Class A drugs police say they recovered in a mail package. MDMA is the main component in the party drug ecstasy. Parker was arrested outside an Airbnb in January, but the case went unreported until authorities showed the Brit shaven and handcuffed at a press conference yesterday.

The French welder, sentenced to death for drug trafficking in 2007,  landed in France on February 5. RTL collected the testimony of his wife, Sabine, who has not seen him since 2019. "Shattered", she is happy to see him again. Atlaoui spent nearly 20 years in Indonesian prisons, including 17 on death row.

French national Serge Atlaoui returned to his home country on Wednesday after spending 18 years on death row in Indonesia for alleged drug offences. Jakarta authorised Atlaoui's return on “humanitarian grounds” and left it to the French government to grant him either clemency, amnesty or a reduced sentence. A Frenchman reprieved after 18 years on death row in Indonesia for alleged drug offences landed back in France on Wednesday, an airport source said. Serge Atlaoui, 61, is to be transported from the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris to court and then on to jail, said a source close to the case and the prosecutor’s office in the nearby town of Bobigny.

A 61-year-old Frenchman sentenced to death in Indonesia in 2007 for drug offences left prison in Jakarta on Tuesday, prison officials told an AFP journalist at the site, before being escorted to the airport to fly to France in the evening. Serge Atlaoui, whose transfer was agreed by Paris and Jakarta on January 24, is expected to land in Paris on Wednesday morning and will immediately appear in front of the prosecutor in Bobigny, according to his lawyer Richard Sedillot, who will then request his release.

French diplomats have acknowledged that talks were underway for the transfer of the 61-year-old Frenchman arrested in 2005 at a drugs factory. JAKARTA: France has sent Indonesia an official request for the transfer of a French death row inmate who has spent nearly 20 years in prison, an Indonesian minister told AFP on Saturday. Indonesia has in recent weeks released half a dozen high-profile detainees, including a Filipina mum on death row and the last five members of the so-called “Bali Nine” drug ring.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — An ailing French national on death row for drug offenses has made a last-ditch plea to be returned home, Indonesian authorities said Friday, as the new administration of President Prabowo Subianto planned to give pardon to 44,000 inmates nationwide. Subianto has surprised the nation with the clemency plan, barely two months after he took office. Past Indonesian leaders have rarely used the presidential prerogative of giving amnesty. Serge Atlaoui, who had spent almost 20 years in Indonesian prison, won a last-minute reprieve in 2015 and was excluded from being executed by a 13-member firing squad.

SYDNEY, Australia -- The five remaining members of the Australian "Bali Nine" drug ring flew home Sunday after 19 years in jail in Indonesia, ending a saga that had frayed relations between the two countries. Indonesian police arrested the nine Australians in 2005, convicting them of attempting to smuggle more than eight kilograms (18 pounds) of heroin off the holiday island of Bali. The case drew global attention to Indonesia's unforgiving drug laws, with two of the gang executed by firing squad, while the others served hefty prison sentences.

A Filipina drug convict on death row in Indonesia told AFP from prison Friday that her planned transfer was a "miracle", in her first interview since Manila and Jakarta signed an agreement last week to repatriate her. Mother of two Mary Jane Veloso, 39, was arrested and sentenced to death in 2010 after the suitcase she was carrying was found to be lined with 2.6 kilograms (5.7 pounds) of heroin, in a case that sparked uproar in the Philippines. Both she and her supporters claim she was duped by an international drug syndicate, and in 2015, she narrowly escaped execution after her suspected recruiter was arrested.

Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were brutally executed in ‘Indonesia’s Alcatraz’. But they remained defiant until the end. The five remaining members of the infamous “Bali Nine” drug smuggling gang in Indonesia may now be coming home after the Indonesian government appeared to agree for them to be repatriated back to their native Australia this week. The news came following a meeting between Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Law, Human Rights, Immigration and Correctional Institutions, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, and Australia’s Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke, during which the Indonesian authorities reportedly provisionally green-lit the proposal – which Mr Burke said was “a significant step forward and shows significant goodwill”.

Jakarta (AFP) – Manila and Jakarta signed an agreement Friday to repatriate Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipina on death row for drug charges in Indonesia since 2015, with officials saying she could return to the Philippines before Christmas. The announcement came following the Philippines' Department of Justice undersecretary Raul Vasquez meeting with Indonesia's senior law and human rights minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra in Jakarta Friday, where both ministers signed the agreement.

The new Indonesian president – who came to office with a questionable human rights record – has emerged as an unlikely champion for a prisoner swap deal In the dark of the early morning of 29 April 2015, two members of Australia’s so-called Bali Nine were each tied to a stake in a floodlit field on the Indonesian prison island of Nusakambangan. Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran refused blindfolds, and sang as they stood before a firing squad of 12. They were killed at 12.35am.

Jakarta (AFP) – France has asked Indonesia to transfer a French death row convict, who has been jailed for drug crimes in the Asian nation since 2005, a senior Indonesian minister told AFP on Friday. Indonesia is in discussion with three countries, including France, over the return of several high-profile detainees and aims to transfer the prisoners by the end of December. "The French embassy has delivered a letter from France's justice minister to Indonesia's law minister dated November 4 containing a request for the transfer of a French prisoner named Serge Atlaoui," senior law and human rights minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra told AFP in a message.

The Republic of Indonesia has quickly endorsed and accepted a Presidential principle agreement to return the five remaining members of the notorious “Bali Nine” to Australia, effectively truncating the five’s life sentence now being served in an Indonesian prison. On Saturday, 23 November 2024, Indonesian Minister of Law, Supratman Andi Agtas, confirmed the commutation of the five Australians life sentences, stipulating that the Australian convicts would be transferred to Australian prisons to serve indeterminate sentences. The exact period to be served by the five remains under review but is anticipated to be less than the life sentence without parole they are serving in Indonesia.

The remaining Bali Nine members would continue to serve their sentences in Australia, a Labor minister says, as the Opposition calls on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to "stand up and explain" the deal. Talks are underway to return members of the so-called Bali Nine drug smuggling ring to Australia, the federal trade minister has confirmed. But he asserted that they would continue to serve their sentences and not be released.

The news comes after a request from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. The five remaining Bali nine* prisoners currently serving life sentences in Indonesia for drug trafficking are set to return to Australia at the request of Anthony Albanese. The Prime Minister made the plea during talks with new president Prabowo Subianto at the APEC conference in Peru, The Australian reported on Friday.