{"id":18784,"date":"2013-01-08T00:10:53","date_gmt":"2013-01-07T23:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uk.news.yahoo.com\/drugs-accused-says-her-children-were-danger-205537559.html"},"modified":"2013-01-08T00:10:53","modified_gmt":"2013-01-07T23:10:53","slug":"drugs-accused-says-her-children-were-in-danger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/drugs-accused-says-her-children-were-in-danger\/","title":{"rendered":"Drugs Accused Says Her Children Were In Danger"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A British woman on trial in Indonesia for drug trafficking has told a court that she became involved only because “the lives of my children were in danger”.<\/p>\n

Lindsay Sandiford, 56, originally from Redcar, Teesside, was arrested in May after police in Bali said they found 10.6lb of cocaine in the lining of her suitcase.<\/p>\n

In her witness statement, she said: “I would like to begin by apologising to the Republic of Indonesia and the Indonesian people for my involvement.<\/p>\n

“I would never have become involved in something like this but the lives of my children were in danger and I felt I had to protect them.”<\/p>\n

Prosecutors in Bali have already said they are seeking a 15-year prison term, a lesser sentence than the maximum penalty for drug trafficking, which is death.<\/p>\n

During the hearing, Mrs Sandiford’s lawyer read out a statement from her son which said: “I love my mother very much and have a very close relationship with her.<\/p>\n

“I know that she would do anything to protect me. I cannot imagine what I would do if she was sentenced to death in relation to these charges.”<\/p>\n

The hearing was postponed from last week because an interpreter was not available.<\/p>\n

A statement by Jennifer Fleetwood, an expert on the coercion of women in the international drug trade, was also read out.<\/p>\n

It said that in Dr Fleetwood’s opinion Mrs Sandiford was threatened and coerced into acting as a drugs courier.<\/p>\n

The next hearing has been scheduled for Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Reprieve, a charity which seeks to enforce human rights for prisoners, said Mrs Sandiford was targeted by drug traffickers.<\/p>\n

Spokeswoman Harriet McCulloch said: “Lindsay was targeted by drug traffickers who exploited her vulnerability and made threats against her children.<\/p>\n

“Following her arrest, she was interrogated by the Indonesian police without a translator, legal representation or the assistance of the British Embassy for 10 days.<\/p>\n

“We hope that the judges take all of this into consideration when handing down their verdict.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A British woman on trial in Indonesia for drug trafficking has told a court that she became involved only because “the lives of my children were in danger”.
\nLindsay Sandiford, 56, originally from Redcar, Teesside, was arrested in May after police in B…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1213,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18784","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18784\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}