The alleged Australian “drug mule” Cassie Sainsbury has reportedly reached a plea deal with Colombian prosecutors for six years’ jail on drug trafficking charges, pending approval by a Bogota criminal court judge.
Sainsbury, who was arrested in April at the El Dorado international airport, allegedly attempting to smuggle 5.8kg of cocaine out of the country.
On Friday a closed court in Colombia heard prosecutors and the 22-year-old Australian’s legal team had agreed to a prison term of 72 months in exchange for a guilty plea by Sainsbury. Under the charges she could reportedly face up to 30 years in prison.
Channel Nine reported Sainsbury could be released in two years with good behaviour under the proposed deal.
The judge will deliver his verdict on the deal on 1 November. News Corp reported the judge told the court on Saturday the deal was within the confines of the law.
In July a similar deal was reached between prosecutors and Sainsbury’s defence team, reportedly in return for Sainsbury providing information on members of the drug smuggling ring, but it was rejected by judge Sergio Leon. Leon said Sainsbury’s claims she was coerced into smuggling cocaine raised questions about the legality of the deal.
Sainsbury has claimed in the past she believed she had agreed to be paid $10,000 to transport documents, but was later forced to carry the drugs after her family was threatened.
In an interview last month she claimed an alleged “mastermind” of the smuggling plot she sent her photographs of her family through WhatsApp, but she couldn’t access them because she couldn’t remember how to unlock the phone.
Her fiance and family have maintained Sainsbury is innocent and was set up.
The drugs were hidden among headphones inside Sainsbury’s luggage. Her lawyer, Orlando Herrán, suggested she was possibly used as a decoy for a larger shipment.
“Traffickers have a lot of experience hiding drugs in Colombia. It is infantile to think she would get through all the controls at the airport with the drugs so poorly hidden,” he said in August.
Sainsbury has been held at the El Buen Pastor jail in Bogota, a notoriously overcrowded women’s prison.
