Next in line for the firing squad
British drug mule granny’s chilling message from condemned Australian on Bali’s ‘Execution Island’ that confirms she’s now...
A BRITISH grandmother on death row in Bali for smuggling cocaine has accepted that she will be next to face the firing squad.
And Lindsay Sandiford has told a friend: ‘I just want to get it over with.’
The 58-year-old broke down in tears last night when she learned that her close friend – Australian drugs gang leader Andrew Chan – is to be shot this week along with eight other prisoners on Indonesia’s ‘Execution Island’, Nusa Kambangan.
Chan’s brother Michael told Sandiford in a text message sent last night that the execution has been scheduled for Tuesday evening.
Indonesia has vowed to kill all of its 58 foreign drug convicts by the end of 2015 – and Sandiford expects to be in the next batch.
She told a friend yesterday she was ‘utterly heartbroken’ at the news about Chan.
‘If they kill someone as good as Andrew, what hope is there for me?’ she said.
‘I just want to get it over with. I feel like just giving up.’
Sandiford says Chan – who was sentenced to death in 2005 for masterminding the so-called Bali Nine heroin smuggling plot – helped her cope in jail after she was given her death penalty two years ago.
They became friends inside Bali’s Kerobokan prison. Chan has written at least three times to her since being transferred in March to Nusa Kambangan for execution alongside fellow Bali Nine drugs gang member Myuran Sukumaran, 33, who is also Australian.
Chan – who turned to Christianity and was ordained in prison earlier this year – told Sandiford shortly before his transfer to Execution Island that he was reconciled to his fate. He said: ‘I’m not afraid to die but I am afraid of dying. I’m scared of the bullets and I’m scared it won’t be a quick death.’
In his handwritten letters to Sandiford, Chan jokes about the quality of the food, and describes a meal of butter chicken and naan bread as his ‘last supper’.
He urges Sandiford, who used to tease him about his religious fervour, to ‘keep reading your Bible’ and writes: ‘You’ll find great comfort in the words, as God will speak to you directly.’
His last letter ends with the message: ‘You have a place within my heart, my friend. Be blessed. Much love and prayers, Andrew.’
In the text, Michael Chan said he hoped his brother would be remembered as ‘Andrew the pastor, not the kingpin’.
Sandiford told her friend: ‘I really admire Andrew. He’s been an incredible help to me and he would be there for anyone who genuinely needed help inside the prison.
‘The heart of the prison has gone since they left. They organised rehabilitation projects. If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t have running water on the blocks, or the classes in painting, cookery and computers.’
Sandiford, from Cheltenham, admitted smuggling cocaine worth £1.6million from Bangkok to Bali in 2012, but claims she was coerced into the crime by a syndicate that threatened her sons. She took part in a police sting that led to the arrest of the syndicate’s leaders.
She was sentenced to die despite a prosecution recommendation that she serve 17 years. The syndicate’s alleged leader, former Brighton antiques dealer Julian Ponder, 44, was jailed for six years.
Sandiford has been refused funding for an appeal against her sentence by the British Government and has rejected consular assistance, in part because of a romance between Ponder and the British Vice-Consul to Bali, Alys Harahap, that led to Harahap’s suspension.
A website and Facebook page launched in Sandiford’s name to fund a retrial had by yesterday raised only around £700 towards the tens of thousands of pounds needed for a legal challenge to go ahead.
‘I just want to get it over with’