Posted on 07/13/2006 2:29:21 PM PDT by The Lion Roars
A backpacker has been jailed for 10 years in India despite claiming she was tricked into becoming a drugs mule. Daisy Angus, 26, received the sentence from a Mumbai court for possessing and attempting to smuggle 10kg of cannabis out of the country.
Angus from Bournemouth, Dorset, was asked to carry a case by a companion, but later confessed to her father she thought it may have held drugs.
She has spent four years in Mumbai's Byculla prison awaiting sentencing.
Angus will now have to serve the remaining six years of the ten year sentence but this could be served in the UK, the Foreign Office confirmed on Wednesday.
We do have a prison transfer agreement with India but it's entirely up to Daisy as to whether she applies for it or not
Foreign Office
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: "We do have a prison transfer agreement with India but it's entirely up to Daisy as to whether she applies for it or not."
The former fitness instructor broke down in tears and continued to say she was innocent as the sentence was given on 21 June.
Angus was 22 when she embarked on a round-the-world trip, which took her to India.
In November 2002 she was found with the drugs in a compartment of her suitcase, which she had been given after her bag broke at Mumbai airport.
A 37-year-old acquaintance, travelling with her, was released without charge.
"Her co-accused, Israeli Yoram Kadesh, was freed by a judge because of a lack of evidence," the Foreign Office spokeswoman added.
Suffered malaria
The Angus family have always protested her innocence, with her parents making regular prison visits, up until her father John's death from leukaemia last December.
Angus herself has been affected by illness during her prison stay and has been in hospital with malaria.
John and Nadine Angus, had worked and lived for five years as volunteers in Mother Teresa's care home in Calcutta, during their daughter's early childhood.
Angus had initially received support with her innocent plea from charity Fair Trials Abroad, but they withdrew from the case after Angus admitted knowing about the drugs
What's 10kg in lbs?
22 pounds of drugs in a 'compartment' of her suitcase? Don't do the crime unless you intend to serve the time. Sorry to hear her youth is destroyed, hopefully the next dozen young people heading that way will hear about this news story and not make the same mistakes.
Don't you multiply by 2.2?
LOL I could have multiplied my 2 and been close enough I guess. I was thinking a Kg was just over two Lbs. In any case that's a lot of weed.
The lunacy of societies celebrating one drug (alcohol) while condemning another (marjiuana). The hipocracy is breathtaking.
I know a uber liberal who took his son to Amsterdam for his 18th birthday. When they didn't return from their trip the family went looking for them and finally found them sitting in a Russian jail.
Seems that they cooked up a "great plan" while brain fried. They were caught illegally in Russia with a lot of drugs. Apparently they thought sneaking across Russia and some how sneaking on a ship from eastern Russia would be easier than flying into DC. They'll be quite fluent in Russian by the time they get home.
22 lbs of pot? What an idiot. It's a terrible shame what she has done to herself. I feel sorry for her parents.
Kadesh, 37, ex dive instructor, nightclub manager, and 'importer' just happened to spend the night in the same hotel, make sure the dolt got on her flight safe, and him to Amsterdamn. But he had nothing to do with 22 pounds of stinky, smell dope in her luggage.
Lots of 22 year old females buy and try to smuggle by themselves 24 pounds of dope.
Yeah, right.
This young woman seems to have deliberately attempted to smuggle drugs and so deserves her punishment. But if the facts are as stated here this Israeli dude is a complete and utter monster and deverves to be taken out in a big way.
I'll ask him in 10 or 15 years when the Russians decide to turn him loose. It doesn't matter who came up with the plan, he's the idiot who decided to take his son to Amsterdam for his 18th birthday to begin with.
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