Amnesty International condemns Lindsay Sandiford death sentence (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Amnesty International condemns Lindsay Sandiford death sentence

1:34pm Wednesday 23rd January 2013 in News By Ian Craig

A HUMAN rights charity has condemned a death sentence imposed on a Gloucestershire woman in Indonesia.

Amnesty International described the sentence passed yesterday on 56-year-old Lindsay Sandiford for drug trafficking as “cruel”.

The Cheltenham grandmother was arrested in May last year after police in Bali found 4.8kg of cocaine in her suitcase.

Although prosecutors had recommended a 15-year jail sentence, judges said there were no mitigating circumstances and she had damaged the image of Bali as a tourist destination.

Her lawyers are thought to be considering an appeal Amnesty International UK Campaigns Director Tim Hancock described the ruling as “extremely sad”.

“She is the second British citizen sentenced to death for drug offences in the last six months – an extremely worrying trend,” he said.

“The death penalty is the ultimate inhuman punishment and Amnesty never condones its use, but handing out a penalty of death by firing squad for a non-lethal crime is cruel in the extreme.

“Amnesty opposes the death penalty in all cases and urges the Indonesian government to scrap this punishment from its books and impose an official moratorium on all executions so that no other individuals face the death penalty there.”

In October a British man, Gareth Cashmore, was sentenced to death by firing squad for a drugs offence. Although no one has been executed in Indonesia in 2008 more than 100 people remain under death sentence in the country.