JAKARTA: A British woman could face the death penalty in Indonesia after being arrested for allegedly smuggling crystal methamphetamine into the country from China, an official said yesterday.
The woman, identified only by her initials AR, was arrested at a hotel in the city of Surabaya, East Java province, last month with 1.47 kilograms of the drug, the national narcotics agency said.
“Because she smuggled drugs weighing more than five grams, she could face the death penalty,” agency spokesman Sumirat Dwiyanto told AFP.
He declined to give further details about the woman or when she was likely to be charged.
The case comes just months after British grandmother Lindsay Sandiford was sentenced to death for attempting to smuggle 2.4 million of cocaine into the resort island of Bali.
In the latest case, AR, who lives in China, admitted after her arrest on April 29, that a Nigerian had asked her to bring the drugs to Indonesia, the agency said. The Nigerian was still at large, it added.
The woman also identified two other people she had been planning to pass the drugs to in Surabaya and Jakarta, and they were also detained, the agency said. It did not say what their nationalities were.
The trio are being held at the agency’s headquarters in Jakarta, it said. — AFP