MALAYSIA. NIGERIAN WOMAN LOSES DRUG APPEAL, TO FACE DEATH

August 2, 2005: Malaysia’s highest court has sentenced a Nigerian mother of five to death after refusing to overturn her drug trafficking conviction, a newspaper reported.
A three-man panel of judges from the Federal Court maintained an earlier conviction in March 1999 ruling that Msimanga Lesaly, 40, was guilty of trafficking in 686 grammes of heroin in northern Kedah state in 1997.
Lesaly was caught with the drugs in a bag, after police stopped her and searched her belongings.
Lesaly, who had filed and lost an appeal in September 2004, had made a last-ditch legal attempt to escape the gallows in filing her final appeal in the Federal Court, the Malay-language Berita Harian daily reported. Now, only a royal pardon can commute her sentence.
Leasly’s lawyer has argued that the conviction was flawed as Lesaly was initially detained with another suspect, who was later released.
He claimed that Lesaly did not know the contents of the bag, which she was allegedly carrying for somebody else. (Sources: Dpa, 02/08/2005)