[Tlc] L-prisoner case

[justinm at ucr.edu]

FYI.
Thanks,
justin


2009-0616 - AFP - £42,000 fine for Briton jailed on Lao drug charge

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090616/wl_uk_afp/laosbritaincrimerights_20090616121411

Yahoo! News

£42,000 fine for Briton jailed on Lao drug charge

Tue Jun 16, 8:12 am ET

HANOI (AFP) – A pregnant Londoner who sentenced to life in prison in Laos for drug trafficking earlier this month, was also fined more than 42,000 pounds, a Lao government spokesman said on Tuesday.

A panel of judges found Samantha Orobator, 20, guilty of trafficking 680 grams (1.5 pounds) of heroin last August, when she was caught trying to board a plane to Thailand.

Government spokesman Khenthong Nuanthasing told AFP on Tuesday that Orobator had also been fined 600,000,000 kip, or 42,740 pounds at her trial on June 3.

"According to the verdict, she has to pay," Khenthong said, adding that Orobator had not yet produced the money and he did not know if she could.

Normally, anyone found with more than 500 grams of heroin faces the death penalty.

But Lao Deputy Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith assured Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell during a May meeting in London that a pregnant woman would not receive the death sentence, according to Rammell.

Rammell said that if Orobator were convicted, authorities had said she could serve her sentence back home under a newly signed prisoner transfer agreement.

British consular officials have visited Orobator since her sentencing, an embassy spokesman in Bangkok said on Tuesday.

"We're working on trying to get the transfer agreement activated as soon as possible," the spokesman said.

British legal charity Reprieve, which earlier sent a representative to Laos in a bid to assist her, has said she is due to give birth in September.

Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
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Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
3046 INTN
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
951-827-4530
justinm at ucr.edu