Indonesia sends home sick British drug convicts, including death row grandma, to serve sentence in UK

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - British death row inmates Lindsay Sandiford (right) and Shahab Shahabadi (left) at a press conference at Kerobokan Prison in Bali before their repatriation under an Indonesia-UK agreement on November 6, 2025. — AFP pic

DENPASAR, Nov 7 — Two British drug convicts including a grandmother on death row flew home early on Friday, as part of a deal to return them on humanitarian grounds.

Indonesia has some of the world’s toughest drug laws, but has moved to release more than half a dozen high-profile detainees in the last year.

Lindsay Sandiford, 69, was sentenced to death on the tourist island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs.

She was repatriated along with Shahab Shahabadi, 36, who was serving a life sentence for drug offences after his arrest in 2014.

Both left Bali on a Qatar Airways flight to London via Doha, an official from Indonesia’s law and human rights ministry confirmed to AFP on Friday.

They had been presented before the media in a handover ceremony at Kerobokan jail a day earlier, with Sandiford covering her face.

Their “detention will be moved to the United Kingdom” under the bilateral deal, the official, I Nyoman Gede Surya Mataram, told reporters.

“For Lindsay and Shahab, after we hand (them) over to the United Kingdom government, (they) are fully responsible for the legal decision that will be given there but still respecting our legal decision.”

Health problems 

Sandiford wound up behind bars after Indonesian customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom of her suitcase when she landed in Bali in 2012.

Sandiford admitted to the offences but said she had agreed to carry the narcotics after a drug syndicate threatened to kill her son.

The repatriation comes after Indonesia’s senior law and human rights minister, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, signed a deal with British foreign minister Yvette Cooper last month for the transfer of Sandiford and Shahabadi.

Both prisoners are suffering from severe health problems.

Yusril said last month that Sandiford was “seriously ill”, while Shahabadi was “suffering from various serious illnesses, including mental health issues”.

Matthew Downing, Britain’s deputy ambassador to Indonesia, said the two were being repatriated on “humanitarian grounds”.

“When they first arrive in the UK, the priority will be about their health,” he said.

“So they’ll be going through a health assessment, and any treatment and rehabilitation that they need.”

The two will be “governed by the law and procedures of the UK” government upon their return, Downing said.

‘Goodbye letters’ 

Sandiford’s case caught tabloid attention in Britain, with one newspaper publishing in 2015 an article in which she detailed her fear of death.

“My execution is imminent, and I know I might die at any time now. I could be taken tomorrow from my cell,” she wrote in the Mail on Sunday.

“I have started to write goodbye letters to members of my family.”

As of August, nearly 600 inmates were on death row in Indonesia, according to the rights group KontraS, citing official data.

Among them are around 90 foreigners, according to the Immigration and Correction Ministry.

Indonesia last carried out executions in 2016, killing one of its own citizens and three Nigerian drug convicts by firing squad.

President Prabowo Subianto’s administration has repatriated several high-profile inmates since he took office in 2024, including the last five members of the so-called “Bali Nine” drug ring.

In December, Filipina inmate Mary Jane Veloso tearfully reunited with her family after nearly 15 years on death row.

And French national Serge Atlaoui, 61, was returned home in February after 18 years on death row. — AFP