Cassandra Sainsbury was arrested (Picture: EPA/Col Anti-narcotics Police)
An Australian woman faces up to 20 years in jail after 18 packs of cocaine were discovered inside her suitcase.
Bride-to-be Cassandra Sainsbury, 22, was caught with the drugs trying to board a flight from Colombia to London last month.
However, her family claim that she was set up. They say she thought
the cocaine packs were pre-wrapped headphones which were going to be
handed out as gifts at her upcoming wedding.
If she is found guilty of smuggling drugs, she will face jail time –
like Peru Two drug mules Michaella McCollum and Melissa Reid who
attempted to smuggle 24lb (11kg) of cocaine out of Peru in 2013.
Sainsbury was arrested at Bogota’s international airport after an
X-ray machine detected the cocaine hidden in different packages stashed
in her luggage.
She faces up to 20 years in jail (Picture: EPA/Col Anti-narcotics Police)
She allegedly though the drugs were headphones Picture: EPA/Col Anti-narcotics Police)
The family of the Australian woman, who was carrying almost 13lb
(6kg) of cocaine, are now mounting a campaign to defend her against what
they consider trumped-up charges.
They continue to say the 22-year-old was set up, but Colombian police
said her arrest was indistinguishable from a growing number of drug
cases involving foreigners.
Sister Khala Sainsbury said: ‘Our hearts break, because we know she
is innocent, but stands little chance of proving it in such a corrupt
country.’
Sainsbury said her sister, a personal trainer and volunteer firefighter, was in Colombia on a working holiday.
She told The Australian newspaper that while in Colombia, her sister
went with a male friend she met before travelling to South America to
buy headphones for her upcoming wedding party.
The merchandise was purchased from a contact in a pre-wrapped package, her sister said.
Jorge Triana, head of the anti-narcotics police at Bogota’s
international airport, said Sainsbury’s claims that she was deceived are
probably untrue and ‘in any case don’t excuse her actions’.
She is due to get married (Picture: EPA/Col Anti-narcotics Police)
She said: ‘Everyone who is caught says exactly the same thing. But they know what they’re doing.’
Colombia is the world’s largest producer of cocaine and its police
among the best-trained to detect and stop drug smuggling thanks in part
to billions of dollars in US anti-narcotics aid that has strengthened
law enforcement.
As tourism to Colombia has boomed over the past decade, the country’s
drug cartels are increasingly recruiting foreigners to smuggle cocaine
out of the country.
Police have arrested 19 foreign drug mules this year alone, Triana said.
Sainsbury has been transferred to a women’s penitentiary in Bogota.
Armed police pointed machine guns at people as they removed them from a house
Dramatic footage has emerged showing the moment armed police swoop on
a house in Birmingham, leading out young suspects while pointing
machine guns at them.
Among the people they lead out of the property in Pretoria Road is a boy believed to be aged 12.
Mobile phone footage revealed armed police leading four young people from the house.
A number of officers, police dogs and a force helicopter can clearly be seen in the video.
Children were lined up in the road covered by officers with machine guns, forced to lie down and handcuffed.
An eyewitness said he was driving along the busy road when police stopped traffic after the raid.
‘I was stuck for about 45 minutes so I just got out and started filming,’ he said.
‘The police led the kids out one by one. The youngest only looked about 11 or 12 and the oldest about 19.
‘Some were still in their night clothes and some didn’t have any shoes or slippers on.’
The bystander, who said his name was Mohammed, claimed: ‘There were loads of people watching this and many were filming.
It later turned out that they had been misinformed
‘The police were still there after I left and so were the people – two were in one van and two in another.
It was also alleged that police detained a woman nearby.
A spokeswoman for West Midlands Police said: ‘Police were called to
reports of a man believed to be carrying firearms in Pretoria Road,
Bordesley Green, at around 10.50am.
‘Officers and the police helicopter attended the scene but despite a
thorough search no firearms were recovered and no arrests were made.
‘Appears that a call was made with good intent.’
Russia has warned the US over last week’s airstrikes on the country (Picture: AP)
Russia and Iran have renewed their support for the Syrian government,
saying the US missile strike violated Syrian sovereignty but failed to
boost the morale of ‘terror groups’ in the war-torn country.
In a phone call with Syrian president Bashar Assad, Iranian president
Hassan Rouhani called Friday’s strike a ‘blatant violation’ of Syrian
sovereignty, Syrian state media reported.
Mr Assad accused the US of trying to boost the morale of ‘terror
groups’ in Syria. The government refers to all those fighting against it
as terrorists.
A statement carried on the military media arm of Hezbollah condemned
the American strike in much stronger language, saying it had ‘crossed
red lines’ and vowing to ‘reply with force’ to any future aggression ‘in
a variety of ways’.
(Picture: AP)
(Picture: AP)
The Lebanese militant group has invested thousands of fighters in the defence of Mr Assad’s government.
The statement was made in the name of a previously unheard of ‘shared operations room’ between Russia, Iran and allied forces.
There was no comment from Russia or Iran about the statement.
The Kremlin said in a statement Mr Rouhani also spoke with Russian president Vladimir Putin by phone.
‘Both sides noted the inadmissibility of aggressive US actions
against a sovereign state in violation of international law,’ the
statement said.
‘Vladimir Putin and Hassan Rouhani spoke in favour of an objective,
unbiased investigation of all the circumstances of the chemical weapons
incident on April 4 in the Syrian province of Idlib.’
(Picture: Reuters)
(Picture: Reuters)
Mr Rouhani said the US strike would not affect Iran’s Syria policy,
while Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran would not withdraw
in the face of similar aggression.
‘What the Americans did is a strategic mistake and offence.
‘They are repeating the offence of their predecessors,’ Mr Khamenei was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.
Iran has provided crucial military and economic assistance to Mr Assad throughout Syria’s six-year civil war.
It has organised several Shiite militias from around the Middle East
to fight in support of Mr Assad’s government and has sent troops and
officers from its own Revolutionary Guards.
The US says the strike was in response to a nerve gas attack on the
rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun last week, which has been widely
blamed on government forces.
(Picture: AFP)
(Picture: AFP)
The Syrian government has denied using chemical weapons.
US secretary of state Rex Tillerson denied in an interview on CBS’s
Face The Nation that the strikes signalled an overhaul of American
policy, saying its priority remained to defeat Islamic State militants
in the Middle East.
The strike was the first time American forces targeted a Syrian government installation in the course of the war.
US Treasury officials say they are preparing sanctions in response to
the chemical weapons attack, although the Syrian government is already
buried under US and EU sanctions.
Mr Tillerson will meet with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow later this week.
Moscow has been a steadfast ally of the Syrian government and has
defended it against claims of chemical weapons use in front of the UN
Security Council.
(Picture: Getty)
(Picture: AFP)
Satellite images of the first attack on a Syrian government military base by the US (Picture: Reuters)
A Syrian Sukhoi jet took off from the Shayrat airbase targeted by the
volley of US strikes, Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV channel reported on
Sunday, saying repairs to the base began within hours of the attack.
Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu played down concerns of a
rift with Russia over Ankara’s support for the strike, saying Turkey was
committed to the cease-fire mechanisms it has developed with Russia for
Syria. 14,000-year-old village 'older than Egyptian pyramids' is unearthed in Canada
Turkey provides military support to some of Syria’s opposition forces.
But he said Turkey could not ‘remain silent’ on the Syrian
government’s chemical weapons use, and insisted Moscow work with Ankara
to establish a transitional government in Damascus.
‘We want to continue our efforts with Russia in the Astana process in
terms of measures to increase trust and establish a cease-fire,’ he
told reporters in Antalya, according to the Anadolu state news agency.
In the days after the Khan Sheikhoun attack, Turkey provided the
Syrian Civil Defence search and rescue outfit with 50 protective kits
for responding to chemical attacks, and trained them in their use,
Anadolu said.
