British officials to meet woman facing death penalty
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Independent Minds
A pregnant woman facing the death penalty in Laos will meet British consular officials today amid growing fears she may not receive a fair trial after being imprisoned on drug smuggling charges.
Samantha Orobator, 20, from south London, was arrested nine months ago at the country's largest airport from where she was trying to return home. In January, while still in prison, she became pregnant in circumstances which have led to claims that she may have been raped.
It was initially thought the Briton, who is accused of smuggling just over 500g of heroin, might face trial as early as yesterday. In Laos, smuggling more than 500g of the drug carries a mandatory death sentence.
Representatives of the legal charity Reprieve publicised her case and over the weekend her mother Jane Orobator, a student at Trinity College Dublin, made an emotional plea for her daughter's release. Yesterday the Laotian government insisted the trial would be carried out fairly but was unable to confirm when it would happen, other than saying it was expected this week.
Today the Londoner will be visited by the vice-consul from Bangkok – the nearest British embassy to Laos – and Anna Morris, a lawyer from Reprieve. Ms Morris said she was concerned that Ms Orobator had not been assigned a defence lawyer, and that any hearing "may be quite quick in comparison to what happens in other countries".
British officials have only been able to visit Ms Orobator for 20 minutes once a month, after learning of her arrest after she had already spent many months in jail.
Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell said he will raise the case with the Laotian Deputy Prime Minister when they meet in the UK on Thursday. He said: "The British Government is opposed to the use of the death penalty in all circumstances. We have made the Laotian authorities aware of this at the highest levels in Samantha's case."
Ms Orobator was born in Nigeria but grew up in Camberwell and Peckham, from the age of eight. Phonthong prison in the Laotian capital, Vientiane, where Ms Orobator is being held, has a reputation for beatings. Cells measuring four square metres are used to house up to six prisoners and the daily ration reportedly consists of two bowls of pig-fat water and rice.
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Comments
This is perhaps a more general opinion on the drug trade, but if she was caught red handed and has a fair trial she should take her punishment. Soft punishments only let people know they can get away with it.
I dont think any of it is fair on the unborn child however, who has had no choice in any of this. This is the only sad thing about a this case (apart from if the accused is actually innocent, but corruption in the law is a debate for another day, along with it being the only real reason to not have a death penalty).
Apologies for any spelling or grammatical errors.
As for only being misery because it's illegal, that's bollocks..Obviously you haven't had much contact with addicts or witnessed how destructive the drug is.
All said and done, she entered a country, knowingly broke a law for personal gain also with the knowledge that the drugs would be used for and therefore intentionally causing harm to others......!! If someone goes to the UK and commits a crime, they are subject to British law.
If anyone chooses to take this risk then they should be prepared to suffer the consequences if they get caught. Things in SE Asia are very different to the western world, we should not impose our lax morals on an area whose morals are far higher than our own.
And please, try heroin then ask your family for an opinion in 6 months!!!!!
That said I don't want her unborn child to be harmed. So let her give birth then execute her. The grand-mother can then look after her grand-daughter in Ireland. Hopefully doing a better job the second time around.
What would have happend if she got away with it ? a lot more people being destroyed by these
" someone planted it on me smugglers"
We should change our laws in this Country and follow by example.........WERE TO SOFT !!!!
You must include yourself in the "scum" and "retarded" people you mention - because to refer to people and nations in that way you really have to be competely ignorant AND totally vile youreslf.
How thoroughly unpleasant and you are!!!!
Thanks
Her youth has led her into this. But the British Government ought not to be meddling and interfering on this.
You go into a third-world country and try to play at being the smuggler 'hero' expect to be burned. Especially when most of the time the smuggler 'hero' is being set up as 'Decoy Mule' ie one that will be grassed up and captured while the bigger shipment is let through.
Now its time for her to face up to the cruel world we live in and the one she tried to play with and lost.
People who feel that criminals deserve to be abused, should take a look at themselves, as they are no better than the criminals, just had different circumtsances.
It is not a secret what the "justice" and brutal prison systems are like in this part of the world. It is also no mystery as to what the punishments are for drug trafficking either. The penalty is death or life imprisonment in both countries. Also in Malaysia.
As a presumably British citizen, she is entitled to consular assistance to ensure that she is now going to be treated properly and gets proper legal representation. She is not entitled to assistance circumventing or having the law of the country she is in applied differently to her than to anyone else.
A brief look in the Lonely Planet would have told this young lady the consequences of her actions. She should have known better - she didn't or she just didn't care and will pay the price.
Get her the fair trial she deserves, have her unborn child returned to her family, and then let the Laotians carry out whatever sentence they deem fit. She can have some sympathy if she is found not guilty and released not before.
Until then she is a drug trafficker and is getting what she deserves. As the saying goes, don't do the crime if you can't do the time!
Seriously people who harbour such feelings as to being glad that criminals are treated such, should ask themselves why they feel so happy at seeing other human beings suffering, no matter what they have done, that feeling is inherently sick.
In Malaysia you still have idiots trying to smuggle drugs despite the warnings on the landing cards that drug smuggling is punishable by death.
Laos is a developing country trying to eradicate a drug problem - they should be congratulated not condemmed.
It is not a secret what the "justice" and brutal prison systems are like in this part of the world. It is also no mystery as to what the punishments are for drug trafficking either. The penalty is death or life imprisonment in both countries. Also in Malaysia.
As a presumably British citizen, she is entitled to consular assistance to ensure that she is now going to be treated properly and gets proper legal representation. She is not entitled to assistance circumventing or having the law of the country she is in applied differently to her than to anyone else.
A brief look in the Lonely Planet would have told this young lady the consequences of her actions. She should have known better - she didn't or she just didn't care and will pay the price.
Get her the fair trial she deserves, have her unborn child returned to her family, and then let the Laotians carry out whatever sentence they deem fit. She can have some sympathy if she is found not guilty and released not before.
Until then she is a drug trafficker and is getting what she deserves. As the saying goes, don't do the crime if you can't do the time!
It is about time we were hard on these people, she is neither a fit mother or british.
Where is Laos. Laos (pronounced /?l??.o?s/, /?la?s/, or /?le?.?s/), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west. Laos traces its history to the Kingdom of Lan Xang or Land of a Million Elephants, which existed from the 14th to the 18th century.
After a period as a French protectorate, it gained independence in 1949. A long civil war ended officially when the communist Pathet Lao movement came to power in 1975, but the protesting between factions continued for several years.
Laos was dragged into the Vietnam War and the eastern parts of the country were invaded and occupied by the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), which used Laotian territory as a staging ground and supply route for its war against the South. In response, the United States initiated a bombing campaign against the North Vietnamese, supported regular and irregular anticommunist forces in Laos and supported a South Vietnamese invasion of Laos. The result of these actions were a series of coups d'état and, ultimately, the Laotian Civil War between the Royal Laotian government and the communist Pathet Lao.
Of the people of Laos 67% are Buddhist, 1.5% are Christian, and 31.5% are other or unspecified according to the 2005 census
After reading this read why Iraq was dragged into war. Kuwait?
Two points. Vietnam and Kuwait sound familiar.
I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla
I'm sure the UK, like many countries, warns people about the severity of punishments for drug offences in many countries, especially in what used to be called Indo-China. And of course don't expect a judicial system comparable to what is found in the English speaking world.
The French have an expression that covers her situation, including the penalty, "Pour encourager les autres".
Here's the solution.
Let her have the baby.
Then shoot her.
Give the baby to Madonna or Bruno.
Everybody (almost) is happy.
Originally I was against the death penalty, but today support it for anyone who takes the life of another--regardless if the person who took another's life is male or female, old or young or at any age, infirmed or well, pregnant or not pregnant--and misuse of drugs is the same as murder and should be dealt with equally. But capital punishment must be administered swiftly--not postponed for endless months and years--nor be sentenced if there is insufficient evidence of the crime. Beatings are totally unacceptable as they are barbaric and do no good--as the USA found out when John Yoo, Condi Rice, Dick Cheney and other goons okayed the brutality of the USA military and CIA in Iraq (Abu Gharib prison) and the clandestine torture cells set up by the CIA from Poland to Peru and throughout the world where George W. Bush accepted waterboarding as necessary--making him and his cabinet guilty of crimes against humanity and all deserving the death penalty--but the USA has no court with the sufficient character or understanding the Judgment of Nuremberg, nor the determination of the Peruvian court that tried and convicted Alberto Fujimori of crimes against humanity.
The Loatian Foreign Minister knows that the UK is opposed to capital punishment in all cases. But the UK's stand does not meet the test of history where all nations and religions until recently declared "a life for a life" and its own history where UK put to death children for stealing a slice of bread or hiding a pirate. When criminals know they can get away with anything, including murder, then nothing stops them. The death penalty must be brought back. I support Samantha Orobator's execution--and it is irrelevant that she is 20 or is pregnant. She should have thought that before smuggling in the drugs. She has offended the laws, those she would share the drugs with, and sanity.
She must have been estranged from her family to get in bad company to be in this dreadful plight. This is one situation of a long line of events of the breakdown of respect and family values, the arrogance, ignorance and lack of respect of youths for elders today, feeling they are wordly and know everything when they know very little about life. My Mum always told me, if you cant hear then you will most certainly feel. It is better to be governed by the fear and values of disrespecting your family, than live a life that ends up this way.