A British grandmother who spent more than a decade on death row in Indonesia has touched down on British soil.
Lindsay Sandiford, 69, who was convicted of smuggling £1.6million worth of cocaine into Bali 13 years ago, was pictured arriving in Heathrow‘s Terminal 4 on Friday.
Sandiford was seen today in a wheelchair wearing black leggings and a green cardigan as she covered her face with her clothing.
Sandiford departed Indonesia early on Friday after she was spared execution when Jakarta and London reached a deal to repatriate her and another British prisoner on humanitarian grounds.
Her plane ticket back to the UK reportedly cost the British government £600.
Before boarding her flight in Bali, the grandmother was pictured at a handover ceremony at Kerobokan Prison.
Sandiford left the notorious prison today with fellow British inmate, 35-year-old Shabab Shahabadi, who was serving a life sentence for drug offences.
The pair were driven to Denpasar International Airport, where they were expected to be handed over to British Ambassador Dominic Jeremy before boarding their flight.
At a news conference, the UK’s deputy ambassador to Indonesia Matthew Downing said: ‘Lindsay Sandiford and Shahab Shahabadi have serious health conditions and are being repatriated on humanitarian grounds’.
Lindsay Sanford pictured at Heathrow Airport on Friday
The 69-year-old was convicted of smuggling £1.6million worth of cocaine into Bali 13 years ago
He thanked the Indonesian government for the transfer, and said the British government was open to talks about Indonesians imprisoned in the UK.
Sources said that Sandiford was desperate to reunite with her family in Britain.
‘More than a decade in one of the world’s worst prisons has taken its toll on her and she wants nothing more than to get back to the UK’, a source told The Mirror.
The repatriation comes after Indonesia’s senior law and human rights minister, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, signed a deal with British foreign minister Yvette Cooper last month for the transfer of Sandiford and Shahabadi.
Sources in Jakarta say prime minister Keir Starmer and home secretary Yvette Cooper personally appealed for her return.
It is believed that Foreign Office representatives had been working on the case for over 18 months, visiting her regularly in prison as her condition became worse.
Sandiford, originally from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, moved to India in 2012 after losing her home.
That same year, she was arrested in Bali after arriving from Bangkok with a suitcase containing cocaine.
Sandiford covered her face with her clothing as she touched down in Heathrow on Friday
She initially claimed she had been forced into smuggling the drugs by a UK-based gang that threatened her family.
However, she later recanted her story, admitting she had agreed to carry the drugs for a British antiques dealer.
Her legal team told the court that she had been forced to peddle the drugs and that she was suffering from mental health conditions.
They also claimed that a drug syndicate had threatened to kill her son if she did not carry the narcotics.
Sentenced to death in 2013, she has since endured years inside Kerobokan Prison, where overcrowding, poor sanitation and extreme humidity made life unbearable.
The severity of the sentence was met with shock because prosecutors had not recommended the death penalty for her.
The ruling was condemned by the British government and anti-death sentence activists.
The grandmother’s release comes just days after pregnant British teenager Bella Culley, who was arrested on drug smuggling charges earlier this year, was released from prison as part of a plea deal.
This handout photo taken and released by Indonesia’s Coordinating Ministry for Law, Human Rights, Immigration and Corrections on November 6, 2025, shows British death row inmate Lindsay Sandiford before being repatriated under an agreement between Indonesia and the UK, at Kerobokan Prison in Badung regency on the resort island of Bali
Lindsay Sandiford reacts in her holding cell after she was sentenced to death for trafficking drugs on January 22, 2013
Culley, 19, was arrested in May at Tbilisi Airport and accused of attempting to smuggle 12 kilograms of marijuana and two kg of hashish into the country.
She was found guilty by a Georgian court on Monday and sentenced to five months and 25 days in prison, the total time she had already spent in custody. Her family also paid around £140,000 as part of a plea deal.