On Tuesday, three British citizens were charged in a Bali courthouse for allegedly smuggling over two pounds of cocaine into Indonesia, where they could potentially face the death penalty due to the country’s stringent drug laws.
In Indonesia, individuals convicted of drug trafficking can face execution by firing squad.
Jonathan Christopher Collier and Lisa Ellen Stocker, both 29, were detained on February 1 when customs officials, using an X-ray machine, discovered suspicious items disguised as food packaging. Prosecutors, including Dipa Umbara, reported these details.
Umbara informed the Denpasar District Court that lab tests identified 10 bags of a dessert mix labeled “angel powder” in one luggage and seven more bags in another, containing 2.19 pounds of cocaine valued at approximately $368,000.
Two days later, Phineas Ambrose Float was apprehended after police caught him receiving drugs from two other suspects in a hotel parking lot in Denpasar.
Float’s case is being handled separately.
According to Umbara, the drugs were brought from the UK and transited through Qatar’s Doha International Airport before arriving in Indonesia.
At a press conference on February 7, Ponko Indiyo, the deputy director of the Bali Police Drug Corps, revealed that this group had successfully smuggled cocaine into Bali in two previous attempts before being caught during their second try.
Following the reading of the charges against the trio, a panel of judges postponed the trial until June 10, allowing time for witness testimonies.
Neither the defendants nor their lawyer offered any comments to the media after the proceedings.
Currently, about 530 individuals, including 96 foreigners, are on death row in Indonesia, primarily for drug-related offenses, according to the Ministry of Immigration and Corrections.
The last execution in Indonesia took place in July 2016, involving both local and foreign nationals.
Lindsay Sandyford, who is now 69, has spent more than a decade on death row after being arrested in 2012 when authorities discovered 8.4 pounds of cocaine concealed in her luggage at a Bali airport. Her death sentence was upheld by Indonesia’s highest courts in 2013.
Despite having some of the world’s most severe drug laws, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime classifies Indonesia as a prominent drug trafficking hub.
