BISHKEK -- A court in Indonesia has sentenced a Kyrgyz woman to 10 1/2 years in jail for illegal drug trafficking, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service reports.
The Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry's press service announced that the court in the city of Bandung sentenced Jibek Sakeeva, 21, to 10 years in jail and fined her just over one billion Indonesian rupiah (approximately $115,000).
Since Sakeeva is not able to pay that fine, her sentence was extended by a further six months.
Sakeeva, from the southern Kyrgyz city of Jalal-Abad, was arrested upon arriving at Indonesia's Bandung International Airport from Kyrgyzstan in October after police found a kilogram of heroin in one of the bags she was carrying.
The case first made headlines in Kyrgyzstan in April, after an Indonesian journalist told RFE/RL about Sakeeva's trial.
Sakeeva said the heroin did not belong to her, but to a friend from South Africa who asked her to take it to Indonesia.
Sakeeva's lawyer, Riki Gunavan, told journalists that Sakeeva plans to appeal the verdict with Indonesia's Supreme Court.
Read more in Kyrgyz here
The Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry's press service announced that the court in the city of Bandung sentenced Jibek Sakeeva, 21, to 10 years in jail and fined her just over one billion Indonesian rupiah (approximately $115,000).
Since Sakeeva is not able to pay that fine, her sentence was extended by a further six months.
Sakeeva, from the southern Kyrgyz city of Jalal-Abad, was arrested upon arriving at Indonesia's Bandung International Airport from Kyrgyzstan in October after police found a kilogram of heroin in one of the bags she was carrying.
The case first made headlines in Kyrgyzstan in April, after an Indonesian journalist told RFE/RL about Sakeeva's trial.
Sakeeva said the heroin did not belong to her, but to a friend from South Africa who asked her to take it to Indonesia.
Sakeeva's lawyer, Riki Gunavan, told journalists that Sakeeva plans to appeal the verdict with Indonesia's Supreme Court.
Read more in Kyrgyz here
