UK Features
Pregnant British drugs girl puts Laos justice on trial (News Feature)
By Simon Parry May 25, 2009, 4:40 GMT
Vientiane, Laos - You can sense it in their agitated voices and exasperated expressions. They wish she wasn't in their prison, they wish she wasn't in their country, and they probably wish she had never been caught when she tried to board a plane in Vientiane last August with 680 grams of heroin allegedly hidden beneath her clothes.
For the Communist officials who run Laos, the case of 20-year-old Briton Samantha Orobator - awaiting trial on heroin smuggling charges that could technically still bring her the death penalty - has become an embarrassment that this landlocked South-East Asian backwater could do without.
What started out as a straightforward case of a young foreign woman acting with what appears to have been crass stupidity has instead brought the harsh light of international scrutiny on a controlling and secretive regime.
The thing that has made Orobator's case a human rights issue is not the manner of her arrest or the conditions in which she is being held in Vientiane's notoriously tough Phonthong Prison. Rather, it is the fact that, eight months after her arrest, she is now five months pregnant.
The Laos government refuses to say how she became pregnant but insists stubbornly it is 'impossible' that she might have been raped inside jail or made pregnant by a prison guard, still defying logic in some interviews to claim she has been pregnant since before her arrest.
Orobator was made to sign a statement in prison declaring she had not been raped and that the father of her baby was not from Laos shortly after her pregnancy was confirmed in March.
A hasty, behind-closed-doors trial now looks likely to take place, possibly within days, after which Laos is expected to hand Orobator over to British embassy officials so that she can be flown home to serve out a prison sentence in the United Kingldom.
Little is known about what led Orobator, a Nigerian-born British citizen described by friends as extremely bright with ambitions to become a doctor, to fly to Thailand and then to Laos where she spent five days before her arrest at Wattaya Airport on August 5 last year.
To the huge annoyance of government officials, however, far more attention has been devoted to the question of how she got pregnant in prison than why she may have tried to smuggle drugs out of Laos - and it is a question to which they are unwilling or unable to give a satisfactory answer.
'This case is not about babies - it is about heroin,' chief government spokesman Kenthong Nuanthasing said with a tone of rising annoyance. 'She signed a statement to say she was not raped. She did not have intercourse with any man in prison. There is no male close to her during her time in prison. All the prisoners are women and all the guards are female.'
Asked who could have fathered the baby, he raised his eyes to the ceiling and said with an impatient laugh: 'Maybe it is a baby from the sky like [the Virgin] Mary.'
So why was she made to sign a statement denying she was raped without explaining the truth of her pregnancy? Nuanthasing said: 'We don't want the outside world to blame us (for her pregnancy). That is why we asked her to write a letter to certify that she was not raped and the baby inside her is not a Lao baby.'
Nuanthasing made it clear that in order to return home to the Britain, Orobator will be expected to confirm at her trial the statement she signed in prison. 'She will tell the court - otherwise she will stay here,' he said. 'Her court case will be dissolved.'
Such a delay could mean Orobator's trial being delayed until after she gives birth and Nuanthasing stressed that the threat of a death sentence could still be invoked as she is only exempt from the death penalty while she is pregnant under Lao law. 'Nobody can guarantee she will not face the firing squad,' he said.
The Laos government insists Orobator is being held in an all-female prison. In fact, Phonthong Prison on the outskirts of Vientiane holds male and female prisoners in separate blocks and has both male and female guards living in shabby quarters in the grounds outside.
A French former inmate who spent five months in the same prison over a business dispute, said, 'As soon as I read about the case of Samantha Orobator, I knew it must have been a prison guard who got her pregnant.
'Female prisoners are fair game for the guards there. They weren't exactly raped but they were coerced into sex with promises. The guards would tell them they could get them off the death penalty or get them or shorter sentence, or make life inside more comfortable for them.'
'There is no humanity and no compassion in that place. It is a place where you are made to feel as if you are nothing. You are completely cut off from the outside world and you're left begging for the smallest sign of hope, the slightest promise of something better.'
Orobator's mother Jane, who lives in Dublin, visited her daughter in the company of government officials and issued a statement afterwards to say her daughter had told her she was not raped and that the father is not a prison guard.
That statement, while failing to resolve the nagging questions about Orobator's pregnancy, will have pleased the Vientiane government and may help speed up the process of her trial and deportation.
Human rights lawyer Anna Morris, who spent a fortnight in Laos helping her government-appointed Lao lawyer prepare for the case, said: 'We will only know the truth about her pregnancy when she is home in Britain. Our priority is to get her home as soon as possible.'
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That is one side of the story. the following is the story from Laos.
Laos to determine how imprisoned Brit got pregnant
Updated May 22, 2009 05:26 PM
VIENTIANE (AP) – Lao authorities are investigating how a 20-year-old British woman accused of heroin smuggling became pregnant in prison, a challenge because the woman has refused to reveal the identity of the father, a government-run newspaper said Friday.
Samantha Orobator's case at first drew international attention over concerns that she could be executed by firing squad if she was found guilty. But under Lao criminal law, a pregnant woman cannot receive the death penalty.
Orobator was on her way to Australia when she was arrested at Vientiane airport Aug. 5 after police say they found 680 grams (1.5 pounds) of heroin in 68 capsules on her body. The British legal charity Reprieve claims the drugs were found in Orobator's luggage. Orabator has said she is innocent.
According to Lao authorities, Orobator initially told authorities she was pregnant by her boyfriend in England but tests carried out showed no signs of pregnancy. It was not until March 2, that she was found to be pregnant in a hospital test that was verified by a second test April 4, police said, meaning she must have gotten pregnant while in prison.
Police now say her trial will be delayed until they find out how Orobator became pregnant to ensure 'the trial is fair and justice was done.'
'This case is not difficult because everything is clear as she was in possession of the drug and all the evidence was on her body,' Police Lt. Col. Khamphonh Sihaphancha was quoted as saying in the Vientiane Times. 'The problem now is her pregnancy so we need more time to investigate.'
Police did not say what their investigation would entail but they raised the possibility they would be looking into whether Orobator might have gotten pregnant by artificial insemination.
Orobator has refused to reveal how she became pregnant and her mother Jane Orobator recently said that she had not been raped by prison officials or fellow prisoners. Jane Orobator also said the father was not a Laotian prison official but she did not reveal the identity of the father nor say whether she knew who it was.
Even if she is convicted, Orobator may not spend much time in Lao jail. A deal struck between British and Laotian officials earlier this month which could allow Orobator, if convicted, to serve any jail sentence in Britain.
Laotian officials, however, could still veto her return.
Justice Hater, I find your remarks and example of the same crass stupidity as chief government spokesman Kenthong Nuanthasing, passing off Samantha’s pregnancy as an immaculate conception. Unless this is how you explain your own entry onto this planet. Your unusual version of reality requires ignoring the fact that Phonthong prison has both male and female guards and prisoners as stated by a former prisoner there. But let’s go with your reality for a moment: that an Australian doctor made Samantha pregnant. By any stretch of the imagination would this be a gross disregard for patient/ doctor relations ?. Why the compulsion for Samantha to sign a declaration saying she was not raped whilst in prison? Your logic relies on an assumption of guilty until proven innocent, it also relies on Samantha being kept in isolation and denied any legal representation prior to the trial which is not have Lao authorities supervising all such council. Your reality blames Samantha for the audacity of ever thinking of going to Lao in the first place. Something I am sure Samantha is now regretting. Justice hater you are just that. You collude with a system that is not really interested in the injustice of Lao poverty that sees many Laos citizens in the same jail as Samantha. You are merely interested in punishment for punishment sake. Satisfying your own personal desire for violence. Justice Hater what do you do in your spare time? Torture cats? Pick the legs of live spiders? After they have given birth that is?
She was caught smuggling drugs and should pay the price. She is of Nigerian descent and why not serve her time in a Nigerian prison, instead of using the 'British' tag to get the softer option of spending 10 minutes on the naughty step in one of our cushy prisons at the tax payers expense? She has forfeited her right to British citizenship and we have enough home grown flotsom without importing more. Either shoot her or make her serve hard time in Laos or send her back to Nigeria to do her time there. It sounds to me that she is very intelligent and not some silly naive little girl that some would like us to believe
I love how, without benefit of a trial, people are ready to condem this woman to hell or death. WHY were the drugs there? What are the circustances... it makes little sense that she would do this herself given her background... something is rotten.
Now, her pregnancy? This poor woman is living a hell undreamed of, and you people have little or no compassion. Unbelievable.
Lao people love only white girls.
There are no way they can do something like this to this girl.
Impossible.
you are really ignorant if you think that it is the little guy (or in this case the girl) supplying the drugs into the streets of any country. Samantha is a pawn being used. Just like prostitution it is a multi million dollar business, so is drugs. Oops or is it a billion. It is the Lust of the flesh ruling the hateful heart of 'man'. The sick thing is, you are admitting and taking the time out to write 'shoot the b...H!' Wow! Now that is scary! And with a heart like that....
Should we kill them all?? And tell me, where do we began? The ones who use the drugs, suppliers, the ones who are paid off???? Where do we began. Oh..that's right the 20 year old, raped, lady in prison. I wonder who supplied this herion to her? My bad....he gets away.
Compassion for drug smuggler, ye right .Ask all those people who have had the unpleasantness of being mugged, burgled by those addicted to heroin.
Do the crime ,do the time!!!!! thats what justice is all about .
I have just had a friend released from HMP in Nottingham for the importation of a large amount of ecstasy tablets after 5 1/2 years .I never once heard him complain.
Let the Laos justice system enforce their law,Laos is the country where the crime was committed.
Why should the British taxpayer have to cough up for another dumb lowlife to spend a comfortable existance in Her Majesty's Prison.
If you decide that you wish to smuggle heroin from a country which has the death penalty then surely, if you are caught, you should expect to recieve that punishment.
It doesn't matter how, when, or why she became pregnant. The fact remains she should (when found guilty) be punished in accordance with the Laos law, which quite rightly is death by firing squad.
She won't be missed
Reading about the way people are interpreting this situation really scares me. Are we (human beings) really that cold hearted? Don't get me wrong, I'm not in support of committing crime and not doing the time. By all means, if you are a criminal of any kind and you are caught; please expect to serve the time with satisfaction.
However, do you not see that the penalty for this crime in Laos is a little heavy handed! If the death penalty is awarded for drug trafficing, what is the penalty for murder?
As for allowing Samantha to serve her sentence in UK, I believe people have got this all backwards. The concept of prison is that you are restricted and everything is decided for you. From the time you wake up to the time you use the toilet to what food you eat and when you eat it. The idea is that you are deprived of your free-will to do anything but plenty of time to think about the crime you have committed. That is why ex-convicts released back into the society are said to have been rehabilitated; that is they have had time to consider their ways. Being imprisoned is not being kept in appauling conditions, even prisoners deserve some level of human right. My conclusion is: whether she serves her time here or in Laos or Nigeria (as some have suggested), the point is that she is incaserated and has time to consider her ways.
Finally, I would like people to put themselves in her situation. What would you like to happen to you?
HAVE A LITTLE COMPASSION!
good post justice 100 % agree
now where is that 3 legged spider gone?
I remember not that long ago people across the world were willing to critique the death penalty policies in the US very freely. I happen to be on the side that killing someone in retribution for a crime is immoral. I am shocked by the readers lack of compassion and willingness to treat another human in a human manner. Trafficking drugs in order to supply a demand should not result in the death of a human and not to mention the mother of a child.
Are you playing a game? I have no any comment over here, just waiting to see the final...
I imagine that Samantha has been punished enough. We don't know for sure, but the possibility of having a 'rape baby' would torture me forever. Her life has been ruined even if they don't kill her.
They could go ahead and leave me in prison or shoot me because I would kill that baby. I wouldn't be able to stop myself. I would hate that child so much.
despite all till now, it would be interesting to investigate where the heroin came from, but nobody want's to know. and there are reasons for it. since 2-3 years or so the number of hummer vehicles in Vientiane skyrocketed. they have funny license plate numbers: 6666, 3333, 9999, 3366 etc. the african and also canadian drug mafia budded up with the Lao logging mafia (read report borderlines which can easily be found on the net). human trafficking is up, loan sharks roaming the roads and a second casino opened recently.
the girl was stupid to take the bait = the money offered for mules. however, as sad as it is, by getting pregnant and triggering the publicity she is doing Laos a big big favour.
Please make it equal right and clear for all human, why the Laos want Mss. Briton, to sign to denies that her baby been rape by the jail or guard. No body can have baby without a man. All have to look to make it fear for all not just for some. All need to understand and have deeper right to know it is every easy to have this problem solve for her baby. Mss.Briton been jail for 8-months but she became pregnant only for 5-month why not by the Laos Guard, no any other can make her pregnant only Laos people made this. please, she have the right and the Human right have the right to make this clear to the international world. Thank you for your take deeper look and bring her baby home. She and her baby is totally a diferents issue not the same and not fear for her.
Thanks,
I say nuke the rice eating turds for raping that poor girl.
'I say nuke the rice eating turds'.
Correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t the Americans try this many years ago and ended up running away with their tails between their legs.
If you have every visited Lao you will find the people are probably the most relaxed and friendliest in the world. The carnage the Americans left behind is unbelievable, in fact 39 years later approximately 300 people per year still fall victim to UXO.
And now you have the Africans and Canadians over here thinking their can do what they like and be saved by their adopted governments i.e. the British taxpayer.
I hope Laotian justice systems full fill their law, and do not bow down to the dictators of the western world.
the girl is black she was in holland before going to leo. say no more. if i go to leo or thailand. i know the rules. if u cant do the time dont do the crime
every body was wonder who's the father of that baby why are you all
wait until baby was born. then you realy know it that Lao or Br what color
of the baby that the color of the father. by the way who's valenteer wnat
to be a baby father. Oh! who' stupid enough to rape her, get her preg.
their are know better then that. i bet the father of the baby probaly
shoot him by now. cause you can't run aways from the true.
to Justice hater AND UK CITIZEN.
I ind both of you to be narrown minded and ridiculously pig headed. First off she is a UK passport holder and is, along wiht her family a UK cotizen and has been for years. Besides that what difference does it make to where she is from, she still has the right to her human rights.
Where is the media coverage of this case in the media? This girl is a scared 20 year old, did neither of you make mistakes at that age? Questions need to be asked. Why was she carrying these drugs? How do any of us know the answers? HAve you been there and asked her? HOw did she get pregnant? Were you there, do u no for a fact she wasn't raped? Or did she in fact willingly have sex with a guard after he coerced her into beliving he could get her off the death penalty. I would do the same inb her position.
7The fact is, does she deserve to die? She is now pregnant, blatantly when she was in prison - and not through a fall from the sky like to government official implied and this girl needs media coverage and help to get her home.
The fact of the matter is no one knows what happened so you have no right to even say stupid things liek you do - imagine it was your friend, or daughter or Sister who went away and got coerced by a man, perhaps a man she was scared of to carry drugs for her, she is 20 and not fully aware of the dangers, now she is alone in a foreign country where they do not no what to do with her and pregnant, possibly facing the death penalty.
I think you both need to grow up and get a grip-perhpas try having a holiday away from the typical tourist trail and see the real world.
i am amazed at how selfish and heartless some people are.why should the poor girl be killed.The bastard(s) who lured her into carrying this thing in the first place are out there living life and loving it.They look for young innocent boys and girls lie to them and use them for drug smuggling.However many of them dont know what theyre travelling for until they get to their destination.Some even get threatened.She's only 20years old have you british law haters no sympathy.cant people just think and its quite clear that she was raped in that prison.I hope and pray that shes tranferred to england and that she gets a fair trial because the main criminals here are the people who sent her to laos in the first place.
What kind of a sick pervert would have a 20 year old girl face a firing squad, and like class a substances are the biggest problem the world is facing. If you don't want them flooding your streets than you have to stop the demand and instead of executing the supplier. In a capitalist world people will do what ever it takes if the price is right, unfortunately for this girl leaving the messed up country she was in she only thought her risk was with the British on her arrival home. These bastards should focus more on exciting there corrupt politicians and not stupid young girls trying to make a quick buck. It is also abvious that she was raped and they just had her sign papers in exchange for sending her to a british prison. Every now and then good people make stupid mistakes and if the previous idoit was living in a free county they would know that. As for me, last time I buy anything from Laos.
This woman had drugs under her clothes and in her body cavities. She knew that she faced a death sentence and pregnancy was the only option so she took it. A horny guard or a sympathetic doctor, who cares; the sensational tabloid press loves to switch the issue from a drug smuggler to a woman who got pregnant in prison. All I can think about in this issue, with all of the idiotic people concerned about her welfare, is the fact that those drugs were earmarked for England and its young people. Think about that before you display sympathy for her. Nigerians, regardless of what passport they possess, have a terrible reputation in Vietnam for con games, scams and drugs. One young, naive Vietnamese woman faces a death sentence in India because of the Nigerians who befriended her and talked her into carrying drugs onto a plane for them. They are free somewhere, and she may be executed for her stupidity and naivete. I have sympathy for her but not this pregnant Nigerian/British woman in Laos.
She knew exactly what she was doing when she agreed to smuggle those drugs. She is by no accounts a stupid girl, just a greedy girl who wanted a quick buck.I speak as a African woman.People like her make me sick because they help to pepertuate the stereotype.The issue is not about how she got pregnant.Its about how she broke the law.She has to do the time.By the way, it has since come to light that a 47 English drug trafficker, also in the same prison, helped her to get pregnant.He supplied the semen.The baby is simply a way of escaping the death penalty.I dont believe in capital punishment but this is disgusting.What an excellent start this poor kid has.Conceived as a convenience.
Now she will be released to the British authorities to serve her sentence. She will be out by Christmas and will be given a council house and benefits.All paid for the ever generous taxpayer.
Moral of the story...Crime pays.
I think the bleeding heart liberals should think about the lives that are destroyed by drugs and not have sympathy for the criminals.
I think that she smuggled the drugs so pay the fucking price. also go back home 2 serve the prison sentence. GREEDY GIRL
I think that she smuggled the drugs so pay the fu**ing price. also go back home 2 serve the prison sentence. GREEDY GIRL
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British justice haterMay 25th, 2009 - 10:57:53
If she had taken the time to study Laos law which is available on the internet , she would of understood that the crime she has committed ,Is the death penalty
But once again the world takes sympathy with this British drug smuggler, who by all accounts has lied to the Laotian authorities about by what means she become pregnant .By all accounts she become friendly with the Australian doctor who frequently visited her. (Questions need to be asked)
So I say let her be an example to the rest of the world who feel they have the right to pollute our streets with class A drugs and introduce her to the death squad (that is after she has given birth )
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