Indonesia has signed an agreement with the United Kingdom to repatriate two British nationals, including a seriously ill elderly woman who has spent more than a decade on death row for drug trafficking, officials said on Tuesday.
Law and Human Rights Minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra confirmed he signed the transfer deal with British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, allowing Lindsay Sandiford, 68, and Shahab Shahabadi, 35, to return to the UK in the coming weeks once technical arrangements are finalised.
“We agreed to grant the transfers of the prisoners to the UK. The agreement has been signed,” Yusril said at a news conference in Jakarta.
Both prisoners, he added, are suffering from severe health issues. Sandiford, examined by both Indonesian and British doctors, is “seriously ill,” while Shahabadi is reportedly battling multiple physical and mental health conditions.
Sandiford’s case: A decade on death row
 
Sandiford, originally from Redcar in northeast England, was sentenced to death in 2013 after customs officers in Bali found cocaine worth $2.14 million hidden in her suitcase upon arrival from Thailand the previous year.
She admitted the offence but claimed she acted under duress after a drug syndicate threatened to kill her son. Her appeals were rejected in 2013, and she has remained on death row in Bali’s overcrowded Kerobokan Prison since then.
Her case drew widespread attention in the UK, where tabloids published her letters describing her fear of execution. “My execution is imminent, and I know I might die at any time now,” she wrote in 2015.
Indonesia’s gradual shift on death penalty
Indonesia enforces some of the world’s strictest drug laws, with more than 90 foreigners currently on death row, all on narcotics charges.Yet under President Prabowo Subianto, Jakarta has begun repatriating several high-profile prisoners instead of executing them.
In the past year alone, Indonesia released Filipina Mary Jane Veloso, who spent 15 years on death row, and French national Serge Atlaoui, who returned home in February after 18 years behind bars.
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Source: TRT