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Topics: Crime, True Crime, UK News, World News, News
Rhianna Benson
Topics: Crime, True Crime, UK News, World News, News
A 69-year-old woman facing the death penalty in Indonesia has issued the judge with one final wish.
Lindsay Sandiford, a British grandmother and former legal secretary, was arrested in May 2012 upon her arrival into Bali from Bangkok, Thailand, allegedly having attempted to smuggle £1.6 million worth of cocaine into the country.
Sandiford insisted at the time that she'd been pressured into transporting the Class A substances by a criminal gang, who'd supposedly made threats against her children.
"I would like to begin by apologising to the Republic of Indonesia and the Indonesian people for my involvement," she famously declared in court.
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"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."
Despite her claims, the Cheltenham local was convicted, and being that drug smuggling comes with a notoriously harsh penalty in Indonesia, she was sentenced to capital punishment, in spite of the prosecution only seeking a 15-year sentence.
In the decade she has spent on death row, Sandiford has ceaselessly attempted to have her conviction overturned, with her legal team arguing that she'd been forced into her crimes. She also claimed to have been diagnosed with mental health issues some years earlier.
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After several years of appeals, however, the mother-of-two's funds ran dry, and she could no longer afford legal representation.
Though the official date for her execution hasn't yet been set, as proceedings currently stand, she'll die by firing squad on Indonesia's 'execution island' in the coming years if her sentence isn't overturned.
Having spent 12 years behind bars, however, Sandiford has had time to consider her fate, and has since expressed her wish for the process to be undertaken as fast as possible.
"My attitude is, 'If you want to shoot me, shoot me. Get on with it'," she reportedly told fellow death row inmate Heather Mack some months ago.
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Sandiford went on to claim, as per The Mirror: "It won't be a hard thing for me to face anymore.
"I might not have chosen this kind of end, but then again, dying in agony from cancer isn’t exactly appealing either."
She added: "I do feel I can cope with it. But when it happens I don't want my family to come. I don't want any fuss at all.
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"The one thing certain about life is no one gets out alive."
Many are still holding onto hope that the grandma will escape execution, including human rights barrister Felicity Gerry KC, who visited Sandiford in Kerobokan prison in 2015.
Speaking to press last year, the lawyer discussed the possibility of the prisoner receiving a life sentence behind bars, as opposed to a death sentence, on the basis that Sandiford has exhibited good behaviour for over a decade.
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"Indonesia is taking an important step in recognising the need to commute the sentences of those subject to the death penalty, especially women," Gerry explained.
"Lindsay co-operated with the authorities and explained levels of coercion that should have at least mitigated her position.
"The government should be taking active steps to facilitate her return to the UK, either to serve a sentence near her family or to consider her release."