Three British nationals could face death by firing squad for allegedly smuggling cocaine into Indonesia
Three British nationals could face death by a firing squad after they allegedly smuggled about a kilogram – over two pounds – of cocaine onto the island of Bali in Indonesia.
The Associated Press reported that prosecutor I Made Dipa Umbara said 28-year-old Jonathan Christopher Collyer and 29-year-old Lisa Ellen Stocker were arrested Feb. 1, after customs officers stopped them at the X-ray machine when they found suspicious items disguised as food packages inside their luggage.
Umbara told the District Court in Denpasar during a court hearing on Tuesday that a lab test result confirmed 10 pouches of "Angel Delight" powdered dessert mix in Collyer’s luggage, along with seven similar pouches in Stocker’s suitcase contained 993.56 grams, or 2.19 pounds, of cocaine, worth about 6 billion rupiah ($368,000).
Two days after Collyer and Stocker were arrested, police arrested 31-year-old Phineas Ambrose Float after a delivery sting set up by law enforcement that involved the other two suspects handing the drug to him in the parking lot of a hotel in Denpasar.
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Float is being tried separately, according to Umbara.
The cocaine was transported from England to Indonesia by way of the Doha International Airport in Qatar, Umbara explained.
The trio successfully smuggled cocaine into Bali on two previous occasions before being stopped on their third attempt, Ponco Indriyo, the deputy director of the Bali Police Narcotics Unit, said during a news conference in Denpasar on Feb. 7.
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The charges against the trio were announced on Tuesday in a Bali courtroom. If convicted, they could face the death penalty. In Indonesia, drug smugglers are sometimes executed by way of a firing squad.
A panel of three judges adjourned the trial until June 10, when the court will listen to testimony from witnesses.
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According to the Ministry of Immigration and Corrections, there are currently 530 people on death row in Indonesia, including 96 foreigners, mostly for drug-related crimes, the AP reported.
The last executions in Indonesia were of an Indonesian and three foreigners, which were carried out in July 2016.
Lindsay Sandiford, 69, from Great Britain, has been on death row in Indonesia for over a decade.
Sandiford was arrested in 2012 after she was discovered to be in possession of more than eight pounds of cocaine in the lining of her luggage at Bali’s airport.
The highest court in Indonesia upheld the death sentence for Sandiford in 2013.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says Indonesia is a major drug-smuggling hub despite having some of the strictest drug laws in the world, in part because international drug syndicates target its young population.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.