NZ judge likely to jail SA drug mule
Publish date: 22 July 2014
Issue Number: 586
Diary: IBA Legalbrief Africa
Category: Africa Focus
A New Zealand judge has requested 'realistic' pre-sentencing reports that exclude house arrest or community service for a South African woman who admitted smuggling 1.2kg of cocaine into that country, Die Burger reports.
Laura Elizabeth Cilliers (32), from Middelburg, Mpumalanga, confessed to being a drug mule via a CCTV court sitting from her cell. Judge David Saunders will sentence her on 20 August. Cilliers took a flight from Singapore to Christchurch on 15 June and on arrival customs officials noticed that she seemed ill. She was in hospital for 13 days during which time the last batch of drugs she had consumed had to be surgically removed. Cilliers was apprehended in South Africa in March this year for possession of drugs. The Middelburg Magistrate's Court granted her bail. Full report in Die Burger
