She was from Japan and Malaysia sentenced her to hold for 3.5 kg of methamphetamine. Now she is going to have the opportunity to live
In a unanimous decision, a three-judge panel of the Federal Court commuted the death sentence of 50-year-old Mariko Takeuchi to 30 years in prison from the date of her arrest in 2009, after considering an appeal for a lesser sentence.
Takeuchi lost her appeal in 2015, and the court upheld lower court rulings that sent the previous nurse to hold for smuggling 3.5 kilograms of methamphetamine into Malaysia in 2009.
She filed an appeal for leniency after a law got here into force last September allowing prisoners sentenced to death or life in prison to use for a reduced sentence. The law was a part of a judicial reform that abolished mandatory death or life sentences for 11 crimes, including drug trafficking, murder and terrorism.
Takeuchi testified at trial that she had no idea concerning the drugs present in the suitcase she brought from Dubai to Kuala Lumpur International Airport. She pleaded not guilty, maintaining that she was carrying the suitcase as a favor for a friend from Iran.
Her lawyer Hisyam Teh Poh Teik told reporters outside the courtroom that Takeuchi might be released by 2029 because prison rules allow one-third of the sentence to be released for good behavior.
According to government data, before the act got here into force, 1,020 convicts were on death row or serving life sentences.
Most of those convicts asked for his or her sentences to be reconsidered after the law got here into force and had their death sentences reduced to prison terms.
