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.
She has already escaped the death penalty, thanks to her unborn child. So it is just right to fine her for her wrongdoing if that is what the Laos Law states. Besides whe will have an additional priviledge of spending time behind bars in her own country where she can have a better chance of being pardoned later on.
Laos should impose the Law so others will think twice before commiting such crime. What Laos need is economic growth and development, not people who provides machinery to promote durg addiction in Laos. Espcially since the youth is usually the victim.. the youth who is the future of Laos. It already has lots of social issues to tackle; use of illegal drugs will only add to them.
She has already escaped the death penalty, thanks to her unborn child. So it is just right to fine her for her wrongdoing if that is what the Laos Law states. Besides whe will have an additional priviledge of spending time behind bars in her own country where she can have a better chance of being pardoned later on.
Laos should impose the Law so others will think twice before commiting such crime. What Laos need is economic growth and development, not people who provides machinery to promote durg addiction in Laos. Espcially since the youth is usually the victim.. the youth who is the future of Laos. It already has lots of social issues to tackle; use of illegal drugs will only add to them.
