British grandmother on death row awaits execution in Indonesia

A 65-year-old British woman named Lindsay Sandiford, who was sentenced to death in 2013 for smuggling 10.6lbs. of cocaine from Thailand into Indonesia, is now awaiting her execution after losing all hope of somehow escaping the tragic fate.

Sandiford has always maintained that she was forced to transport the drugs after her children's safety was threatened by traffickers. In 2013, she appealed her death sentence but this was rejected by the Indonesian Supreme Court.

She is currently locked in a Kerobokan Prison in Bali, and spends her time indulging in activities like knitting to try and raise money for her legal fees. A date for her execution has not yet been set.
Sandiford had once said that she wants to look at her executioners in the eye when facing death by firing squad.

"I won't wear a blindfold. It's not because I'm brave but because I don't want to hide – I want them to look at me when they shoot me," she had said. "I'll sing too, but not Amazing Grace. I'll sing Magic Moments by Perry Como."

"I would dearly love to see my family, of course, but I wouldn't subject them to that. I don't want any of my family to be there and I don't want a spiritual adviser because I haven't turned to God," she added.

Kerobokan is one of Indonesia's most notorious prisons, a report in ABC News had said that 80 percent of its prisoners are in on drug charges, wrote The Independent.

Indonesia is known for its tough penalties and zero-tolerance policy on drug offences. It is one of the few countries that have a death penalty for drugs related offences.

Death sentences in the country are carried out by a firing squad of 12 gunmen, according to Amnesty International. Prisoners are given a choice of whether to stand or sit, or whether to have their eyes covered by a blindfold or hood, or not at all.

Indonesia's President Jodo Widodo has defended the country's death penalty laws saying they act as an "important shock therapy" for future offenders. Rights activists and some governments have called to abolish the death penalty.