An Australian woman, who is a mother of four and also a grandmother, has been sentenced to death by hanging after a Malaysian court on Thursday found her guilty of smuggling drugs in her bag.
The sentence comes a few months after Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto was acquitted of the drug charges on grounds that she didn’t know there was crystal methamphetamine in her bag when she was arrested in December 2014 at Kuala Lumpur’s international airport.
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But prosecution appealed the acquittal. A three-judge panel then threw out the previous ruling, sentencing the 54-year-old woman to death.
Exposto is from Sydney and has four children.
In 2014 she was catching a connecting flight in Malaysia from Shanghai to Melbourne; 1.5 kilograms of meth was discovered when she put two bags through the security scanner.
But Exposto claimed to have no knowledge of the drugs in the bag, saying she was scammed by a man she met online.
Exposto said she went to Shanghai to meet a U.S. serviceman with whom she had an online romance. She claimed to have been asked to carry a bag full of clothes and was unaware of the drugs.
Exposto’s lawyer said a three-member appeals court “found there was merit” in the prosecution’s appeal, though it didn’t say on what grounds. She said Exposto was shocked but calm.
“It’s disappointing as there was clear evidence that she was the victim of an internet romance scam. She was a drug mule,” Scivetti told The Associated Press, adding that they have appealed to Malaysia’s top court.
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Malaysia, like other countries in Southeast Asia, imposes harsh penalties for drug offences. Late last year, parliament voted to remove the death penalty as mandatory punishment for drug trafficking, and leave it to judges’ discretion instead.
Australian Foreign Minister Julia Bishop said her government was aware of Exposto’s right to appeal.
“Australia opposes the death penalty in all circumstances for all people,” Bishop said in a statement.
Malaysia has executed three Australian nationals for drug trafficking in the past 30 years, leading to brief strains in diplomatic ties between the two countries.
— With files from the Associated Press and Reuters