D-Day for accused Aussie drug mule

CASSIE Sainsbury will learn her fate today, with a Colombian judge to deliver his verdict to the 22-year-old in a packed narcotics courtroom.

Senior Judge Sergio Leon has two options in sentencing the former South Australian sex worker and gym owner known as “Cocaine Cassie”, whose Bogota travails have captured international attention since her April arrest with 5.9kg of drugs.

He can accept a six-year sentence, down from a 30-year maximum, which was agreed to by Ms Sainsbury’s Bogota lawyer and prosecutors last month, or he can order that she stand trial.

The plea deal was dramatically put in doubt by Ms Sainsbury’s insistence at her first court appearance that she had been “coerced” into carrying the cocaine.

This meant she was therefore not accepting she had acted with “intent”, a central tenet of the deal her lawyer Orlando Herran negotiated.

Judge Leon suspended last month’s sentencing hearing following Ms Sainsbury’s claims, in order to thoroughly review her case, even suggesting that she was “possibly innocent”.

A prosecution source said yesterday that if Ms Sainsbury did not agree she acted with intent, it was likely Judge Leon would order a trial. This could then take years and potentially deliver a longer sentence, given Ms Sainsbury has admitted she has no evidence to support her claims of being threatened.

The hearing was set for 2pm local time Wednesday (5am AEDT today).

Ms Sainsbury has been in custody since April 12, when she was arrested at El Dorado International Airport after a tip off to local narcotics police from the US Drug Enforcement Agency, which has an extensive presence in Bogota.

There have been conflicting reports about exactly what narcotics police seized when they searched Ms Sainsbury’s luggage.

But a police statement of facts read to the court at her first appearance last month stated the drugs were packed among sets of headphones in her green suitcase, stuffed into 18 different packages. The drugs had a street value of about $2 million.

If Ms Sainsbury was acting as a typical drug mule, she would have earned just a fraction of this amount, with organised crime expert Ariel Avila saying foreigners are offered $10,000 to $15,000.

Ms Sainsbury has offered several conflicting stories to her family, lawyers and investigators, but has consistently claimed she is innocent.

“I haven’t actually [done] anything wrong,” she told News Corp Australia from jail in her only interview.