XPost: aus.politics, talk.politics.guns, japan.soc.crime
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https://fox5sandiego.com/news/world-news/ap-international/ap-japanese- court-convicts-australian-who-says-she-was-tricked-into-smuggling-drugs/

CHIBA, Japan (AP) ù A Japanese court on Wednesday sentenced an Australian
woman to six years in prison for smuggling amphetamines into the country, despite accepting her testimony that she was tricked as part of an online romance scam.

The Chiba District Court said it found Donna Nelson, 58, from Perth,
Australia, guilty of violating the stimulants control and customs laws. It ordered her to pay a fine of 1 million yen ($6,671) in addition to serving
a prison term.

Nelson was arrested at JapanÆs Narita International Airport, near Tokyo,
on Jan. 3, 2023, after customs officials found about 2 kilograms (4.4
pounds) of phenylaminopropane, a stimulant, hidden under a false bottom in
a suitcase she was carrying as checked luggage.

Nelson told the court that she did not know that drugs were hidden in the suitcase and that she was carrying them for a man she hoped to marry.

The man, whom she met online in 2020, told her he was the Nigerian owner
of a fashion business. In 2023, he paid to travel to Japan via Laos, and
asked her to collect dress samples from an acquaintance in Laos, the court
said in the ruling. She was supposed to meet him in Japan but he never
showed up, according to prosecutors.

Nelson has already been in custody for nearly two years. The court said
430 days of that will be counted toward her sentence.

Presiding Judge Masakazu Kamakura said that although Nelson was deceived,
she had a sense that something was wrong with the arrangement and that something illegal could be hidden in the suitcase, and she could have
stopped.

Kamakura said Nelson was taken advantage of her desire to marry the man
and that there is room for ôsympathyö for what she did.

He imposed a shorter sentence than would be typical for the amount of
drugs she was carrying, after prosecutors had demanded 10 years in prison
and a fine of 3 million yen (about $20,000).

NelsonÆs lawyer Rie Nishida said the ruling was unjust and that she
planned to appeal. ôWe will fight until the end,ö she said.

On Wednesday, Nelson sobbed as the verdict was read out. One of her
daughters, Kristal Hilaire, wiped away tears as she looked on from her
seat in the audience.

ôWe are disappointed and devastated by the courtÆs verdict in our mumÆs
case,ö Hilaire told reporters outside the court. ôWe maintain that our mum
was the victim of a romance scam. She is the victim of a crime and not a criminal. She has always been against drugs.ö

Hilaire said the past few weeks had been a difficult time for the family
but that they have come together to support each other and Nelson during
the trial, and that they will keep fighting ôuntil we can bring her home.ö

But Hillaire said she is worried about her mother, devastated and much
thinner. ôI worry about how she would handle another six years.ö

Several other family members who attended earlier sessions, seeing Nelson
for the first time since her arrest nearly two years ago, returned home
ahead of the verdict.


--
November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump. We look
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We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that
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Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden
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Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
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