A 19-year-old woman who was on death row facing execution by firing squad after she was caught smuggling drugs has learned that she will face a lengthly jail term instead.
Manuela Vitoria de Araujo Farias was apprehended by police attempting to carry three kilos of drugs into ultra-conservative Indonesia.
The Brazilian national had packed the cocaine into her luggage as she flew into the island of Bali and attention soon turned to what her punishment should be, with Indonesia's human rights record not exactly glowing.
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However, the young woman appears to have hope, as prosecutors have asked the court to jail Farias for 12 years.
Her lawyer Davi Lira da Silva said: "We start from the premise that if the prosecution itself does not plead for capital punishment, the judge will not give it […]."
Farias had claimed that she was tricked into smuggling the drugs by a gang who had told her of temples on the island where they pray for the sick, her lawyer said.
Her mother had previously suffered a stroke and so she decided to seek Buddhist prayers for a cure.
Her lawyer said: "They said that she could pray in the temples to ask for her mother's healing."
She was arrested at Bali International Airport in January after passing through airports in Brazil and Qatar after flying from Florianopolis in Brazil on January 27.
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The next trial date is scheduled for Tuesday (May 30).
The publication added that Police in Santa Catarina in Brazil has refused to discuss the status of the investigation into the alleged criminals that gave the teenage girl the drugs.
An Australian surfer and diving instructor narrowly avoided a death sentence after he was caught smuggling heroin into Bali.
Instead, Jeffery Walton, 52 served eight months in a rehabilitation facility following his arrest last September.
A judge accepted that the eight grams of heroin and 0.34 grams of methamphetamine were in his possession as a drug user, not a drug trafficker.
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