Arrested for trafficking cocaine in Indonesia, Brazilian Manuela Vitória de Araújo Farias, 19, apologized “for offending the country” during a hearing held on Tuesday (30).
The act of penance is part of a defense strategy to prevent the judges from sentencing her to the death penalty or life imprisonment. The decision will be given on June 8.
The Asian country is one of the few that still apply capital punishment for drug trafficking. In the last ten years, two Brazilians have been executed after being convicted of this crime.
The Brazilian’s family was confident of a milder sentence after the Indonesian Public Prosecutor’s Office accepted the defense’s argument that she did not have the exact notion of the crime she was committing and asked that she be sentenced to 12 years in prison.
“The family members were very hopeful, but we have to be realistic and wait for the judges’ decision. They are not obliged to comply with what was proposed by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, but that is what normally happens”, said lawyer Davi Lira da Silva. He explained that the decision, in the form of a judgment, is given by three judges.
At the hearing, in addition to the statement by the accused acknowledging her mistake and apologizing, the lawyer hired by the family in Indonesia asked that the young woman’s young age, the absence of a criminal record and the fact that she was coerced into taking the drug without having the idea of the seriousness of the case.
Manuela was arrested after disembarking from a Qatar Airways flight on the island of Bali, Indonesia, on the night of December 31 last year, with two suitcases. In one of them, the police found 1.6 kg of cocaine and in the other, about 2 kg of the drug.
According to the lawyer, the young woman sold perfumes and clothes in Florianópolis (SC) and was co-opted by a gang of drug dealers to take a package to Bali. In exchange, they would pay her expenses and a surfing course, her favorite sport, in that country. When the young woman, suspicious, tried to retreat, they threatened her.
The family is from Pará, where Manuela was born, but her mother lives in Santa Catarina. Relatives and friends mobilized through social networks to get resources to pay the lawyer in Indonesia. The money raised also helped to hire a translator.
A page created on Instagram already has more than 3,000 followers and publishes updated information about the process. The Embassy of Brazil in the Asian country follows the case and provides consular assistance to the Brazilian.
dead brazilians
Two Brazilians were sentenced to death and executed in Indonesia after being caught with a large amount of cocaine. In May 2015, Rodrigo Muxfeldt Gularte, then 42 years old, was shot dead after more than ten years in prison.
He had been arrested in 2005 with six kilos of cocaine hidden in surfboards.
In January 2015, Carioca Marco Archer Cardoso Moreira had already been executed, aged 53, accused of entering the country with 13.4 kg of cocaine camouflaged in a dismantled hang glider.
Source: CNN Brasil
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