Pallade Veneta - Indonesia to repatriate British grandmother on death row in drug case

Indonesia has in the last year moved to release half a dozen high-profile detainees, including a Filipina mother on death row and the last five members of the so-called "Bali Nine" drug ring.

Lindsay Sandiford, in her late 60s, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs.

Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated $2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford's suitcase when she arrived in Bali on a flight from Thailand in 2012.

Sandiford admitted the offences but said she had agreed to carry the narcotics after a drug syndicate threatened to kill her son. In 2013 she lost an appeal against her death sentence.

Senior law and human rights minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra said he had signed with British Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper a deal for the transfer of Sandiford and Shahab Shahabadi, a 35-year-old serving a life sentence for drug offences after his arrest in 2014.

"We agreed to grant the transfers of the prisoners to the UK. The agreement has been signed," Yusril told reporters at a press conference in capital Jakarta, confirming an earlier AFP report about their transfer.

The pair would be handed over "immediately" after technical details of the transfer were agreed, a government source told AFP earlier on Tuesday.

The government source listed Sandiford as 68 years old, though public information showed her to be 69.

Britain's embassy in Jakarta directed all questions to Indonesian authorities.

It was unclear if Sandiford would remain at Bali's overcrowded and most notorious prison Kerobokan before her transfer or be moved to another facility.

Indonesia has some of the world's toughest drug laws, and dozens of foreigners remain on death row for drug offences there.

- Goodbye letters -

Sandiford's case caught tabloid attention back home in Britain, with one newspaper publishing an article written by her 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 British newspaper the Mail on Sunday in 2015.

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

Sandiford, originally from Redcar in northeast England, wrote in the article that she had planned to sing the cheery Perry Como hit "Magic Moments" when facing the firing squad.

She became friends in prison with Andrew Chan, an Australian killed by firing squad for his role in a plan to smuggle heroin as one of the so-called "Bali Nine" group of smugglers.

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto's administration has repatriated several high-profile inmates, all sentenced for drug offences, back to their home countries since he took office in October last year.

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

In February, French national Serge Atlaoui, 61, was returned home after 18 years on death row in Indonesia.

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

Indonesia's immigration and corrections ministry said more than 90 foreigners were on death row, all on drug charges, as of early November.

The Indonesian government recently signalled it could resume executions.

I.Saccomanno--PV