The Australian woman Cassie Sainsbury has been sentenced to six years behind bars in Colombia after a judge approved a plea deal.
The 22-year-old, from Adelaide, was caught with 5.8kg of cocaine hidden in her luggage as she tried to leave the country in April.
Sainsbury was facing more than 20 years in prison, but a plea deal – and a fine of US$90,000 (A$117,000) – enabled the sentence to be reduced.
Sainsbury is teaching English inside the prison and, with time already served plus her work in jail, she could be released in as little as three years, said her lawyer, Orlando Herran.
“To obtain the freedom for Cassandra will be about three years, three years because it’s possible to obtain benefits, different benefits for good position in jail, for learning or study in jail,” Herran said.
A previous attempt at a plea bargain with prosecutors was suspended in July by a judge after Sainsbury told the court she feared her family would be killed if she refused to smuggle cocaine for a drug ring.
The judge said those comments raised questions about the legality of the deal the 22-year-old had struck with prosecutors to serve just six years instead of at least 20 in return for information on the ring.
Herran told reporters outside the court that the judge had taken into account her claims that she was forced to carry the drugs because of violent threats made against her family.
“He was taking into account all the stories related to the case in which she was subjected to lots of threats by third parties,” he said through a translator.
“She’s lucky because the amount of the drugs was very big.”
Herran said he intended to appeal the $US90,000 fine as Sainsbury was unable to pay it.
Sainsbury didn’t make any comment to a large media contingent waiting outside the court as she left by bus to return to prison.
In an interview with the Nine Network’s 60 Minutes program in September, Sainsbury told of how she landed in trouble in Colombia after thinking she had accepted a job as a legitimate courier transporting documents for $10,000 plus flights, but plans changed at the last minute.
She was sent to Colombia, where a “mastermind” known only as Angelo threatened via WhatsApp to kill her mother, sister and fiance if she did not transport his drugs.
Sainsbury’s mother, Lisa Evans, flew from Adelaide to be with her daughter as the judge handed down his decision in a closed court hearing in Bogotá on Wednesday, local time.
