Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto, a 54-year-old Australian woman escaped the possibility of a death sentence on Wednesday after she was found not guilty of drug trafficking by Malaysia’s High Court.
Exposto was arrested at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in December 2014 for smuggling more than a kilogramme of crystal methamphetamine.
Her lawyers previously told the court that she was caught during a stopover while carrying the drugs from Shanghai to Melbourne while an unwitting pawn in an online romance scam.
Exposto was unaware that she had been tricked by her supposed online lover, a U.S. soldier who identified as “Captain Daniel Smith.”
Malaysia’s drug laws ensure the execution by hanging of anyone caught with more than 50 grammes of a narcotic.
In November, the Malaysia parliament passed an amendment approving the removal of the mandatory death penalty for drug offences giving judges full discretion in sentencing, Malay Mail online reported.
Exposto’s lawyers were not immediately available to comment on whether their client would be covered by the amended law because she was charged but not convicted when it was passed in November.
To date, three Australian nationals have been executed in Malaysia because of drug offences – Kevin Barlow and Brian Chambers in 1986 and Michael McAuliffe in 1993 for drug offences, The Guardian reported.
