BRITISH WOMAN Samantha Orobator, whose family live in Ireland, was yesterday jailed for life in Laos on drug trafficking charges.
Orobator’s mother Jane is a fulltime student at Trinity College Dublin and lives with three of her other children, who are aged between 9 and 14, in Castleknock, Dublin.
Jane Orobator travelled to Laos two weeks ago and was present as a court handed a term of life imprisonment to her pregnant daughter in the Laotian capital Vientiane.
She said that for her daughter to be intercepted smuggling drugs was “totally out of character”.
“She is very fragile, just a little thing,” she said.
Samantha Orobator (20) was stopped with 680g of heroin at Wattay International Airport in August last year. Although the amount of heroin in her possession was above the limit whereby a mandatory death sentence is imposed, Orobator escaped execution after becoming pregnant in jail while awaiting trial.
However, Orobator may yet serve the entirety of her sentence, or a large proportion of it, in her home country under the terms a recently agreed prisoner transfer treaty negotiated by the UK with the Laotian government.
Orobator must apply directly to British authorities to be considered as a candidate for transfer.
Transferred prisoners cannot appeal their sentence in the British courts.