British woman sentenced to death for Bali drug trafficking

An Indonesian court has sentenced a 56-year-old British grandmother to death for smuggling cocaine into the resort island of Bali. Lindsay Sandiford sobbed as she heard the verdict, which stunned her defence team after they had recommended a lenient sentence of just 15 years imprisonment.  "We found Lindsay Sandiford convincingly and legally guilty for importing narcotics... and sentenced the defendant to death," Judge Amser Simanjuntak told Denpasar district court on Tuesday. Sandiford, wearing reading glasses and with her hair pulled back, hung her head low and cried as the verdict was read out, while her sister Hillary Parson who attended the trial also sobbed. Sandiford had claimed in court that she was forced to take the drugs into the country by a gang that was threatening to hurt her children but the court wasn't interested in her reasons.

Read on and watch video after cut:

                             

Sandiford was arrested at Bali's international airport in May with 4.79 kilograms of cocaine stashed in her suitcase SAIG TO WORTH $2.5million. Two other Britons arrested in connection with the case received light sentences last month. Rachel Dougall was sentenced to 12 months for failing to report Sandiford's crime and Paul Beales received four years for possession of 3.6 grams of hashish but was cleared of drug trafficking. A fourth Briton, Julian Ponder, is expected to hear his sentence at the end of this month after prosecutors recommended a seven-year jail term.