Lindsey sandiford

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Lorns
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Now I disagree with drug smuggling etc. I also believe in if u do the crime u do the time. However I do not agree with the dealth penalty for british nationals abroad, afterall, the uk will not send a wanted criminal abroad where he/she could face a death penalty. I know its a very complex case. What are your thoughts on this?
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Gavin Scott
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I think it might be reduced on appeal - but I wouldn't say that being British should stop someone being sentenced based on another country's laws. That couple who shagged on the beach in an Arabic country - well - they were morons, and should have known they'd be flogged.

What was this woman thinking? 10lbs of coke in her case? What a fool.

I don't think its so complicated. Like I say, it'll probably come down to life imprisonment on appeal - but it sends the message that Bali won't put up with a drug mule trade, and that's their choice really.

I make no comments on the rights and wrongs of a bit of charlie every now and then.
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WillPS
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People get themselves in a mess sometimes, and it could have been the case that she owed somebody who gave the ultimatum of doing this or getting an on-the-spot death penalty.

Drugs are bad, mmmkay.
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Jake
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Of course I don't think she should face the death penalty, but they have every right to punish her and a prison sentence would be entirely appropriate.

What I find ironic is that the judges said she had damaged the image of Bali as a tourism destination. Surely giving her the death penalty would damage that image far more than she has done?
wells
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First things first, I do not think this woman will be executed in the end, given that it hasn't been carried out in Indonesia since 2008 and the barrage of political pressure that will no doubt come their way, if the appeals process doesn't prove successful.

Some of the comments on news sites are sickening really.
I've worked as a health professional for 12 years. I've been in constant contact with drug users and their families their children. I've been on scene on numerous heroin overdoses, working on them as their children look on. I've had to inform next of kin that their relatives that their farther son and so on have died. I have no sympathy for any British drug mule caught abroad. Payment for greed !
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21137649?p ... _115052245

I see smuggling drugs is wrong and the effects on people's lives are often devastating, but these 'drug mules' are likely to often to be just as much of a victim of the real people profiting from these crimes, as the drug addicts.

Luckily you do get the occasional, commentator like this.
Here's a thought. Just because it's the law, doesn't make it right.

People who believe that stand for progress. People who don't should read up on a bit of history.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21137649?p ... _115052844

Just because it's happening in another country, doesn't mean we shouldn't be allowed an opinion on it.

But my opinion is not based on her being a British national but her being a human being. The fact she is a British national is reason I know about it and feel compelled to do something.
cwathen
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I think it does send out an important message which is all too easy to forget - when you leave the UK you can't take UK law and UK rights with you, you leave them behind. For many countries, that includes the right to not be sentenced to death for a crime. Whilst you are in someone else's country, you are bound by their laws, not ours. They are not remotely interested in what would have happened to you in this country if you had done the same thing.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of this particular case, if a foreign national were to come here and commit a serious crime in UK law which in their own country was a less serious crime or not one at all and the UK courts proceeded on the basis of what would happen in that person's native land rather than what should happen here, there would be uprorar. So from a point of view of principal, if you can be sentenced to death for drug trafficing in Indonesia then it is entirely appropriate that Lindsey Sandiford has been sentenced to death.

That said, the *prosecution* only asked for a 15 year prison sentence. If even the prosecution bringing the case feel that death is excessive, then you have to question the severity of the sentence - I would say she has a good chance of getting this reduced on appeal.

As others have said, I doubt very much that sentencing her to death to avoid 'damaging Bali/Indonesia as a tourist destination' is going to have the desired effect - I've certainly little interest in visiting a country where I might die at the hands of their legal system.
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