Yorkshire grandmother who was sentenced to death in Bali after £1.6m cocaine discovery returns to UK
A grandmother who was facing execution by firing squad has arrived back in the UK after being repatriated from Bali.
Lindsay Sandiford was sentenced to death on the Indonesian island in January 2013 for drug trafficking after she was found with cocaine worth an estimated £1.6 million as she arrived.
The 69-year-old, who was originally from Redcar, Teesside, admitted the offences but claimed she was coerced by threats to her son’s life.
Images published by the Daily Star and Metro appear to show Sandiford in a wheelchair and covering her face with a jumper outside Heathrow Airport on Friday.
Last month, an agreement to repatriate her, alongside fellow British national Shahab Shahabadi, 35, was signed by Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper and Indonesia’s Senior Minister of Law Yusril Ihza Mahendra.
Both Britons have suffered severe health difficulties and Shahabadi was also due to fly to the UK on Friday.
A death sentence was imposed on Sandiford despite prosecutors asking only for a 15-year jail term.
Shahabadi had been serving a life sentence since 2014 after being arrested during a probe into an international drug trafficking network.
Indonesia’s last executions were carried out in July 2016.