Japanese court convicts Australian who says she was tricked into smuggling drugs
CHIBA, Japan (AP) — A Japanese court on Wednesday sentenced an Australian woman who says she was tricked amphetamines into the country to six years in prison, despite accepting her testimony that she was the victim of an online romance scam.
The Chiba District Court said it found Donna Nelson from Perth, Australia, guilty of violating the stimulants control and customs laws. It ordered her to pay a fine of 1 million yen ($6,671) in addition to serving a prison term.
Nelson was arrested at Japan’s Narita International Airport just outside Tokyo on Jan. 3, 2023 when customs officials found about 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of phenylaminopropane, a stimulant, hidden under a false bottom in a suitcase she was carrying as checked luggage.
Nelson, 58, told the court that she did not know that drugs were hidden in the suitcase and that she was carrying them for a man she thought she loved and hoped to marry.
The man, whom she met online in 2020, told her he was the Nigerian owner of a fashion business. In 2023, he paid to travel to Japan via Laos, and asked her to collect dress samples from an acquaintance in Laos, her lawyers said.
She was supposed to meet the man in Japan but he never showed up, according to prosecutors.
Nelson has already been in custody for nearly two years. The court said 430 days of that will be counted toward her sentence.
Presiding Judge Masakazu Kamakura said that although Nelson was decieved, she had a sense that something was wrong with the arrangement and that something illegal could be hidden in the suitcase, and she could have stopped.
However, the judge said there was room for sympathy and imposed a shorter sentence than would be typical for the amount of drugs she was carrying.
Prosecutors demanded 10 years in prison and a fine of 3 million yen (about $20,000) in their closing argument last month.
Nelson’s lawyer Rie Nishida said the ruling was unjust and did not make sense, and that she planned to appeal.
On Wednesday, Nelson dropped her head and seen sobbing as she listened to the verdict in the witness seat in front of a panel of judges. One of her daughters, Kristal Hilaire, was also seen wiping away tears as she looked on from her seat in the audience.
Several other family members who attended earlier sessions, seeing Nelson for the first time since her arrest nearly two years ago, returned home ahead of the verdict.