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Family of alleged SA drug mule Cassandra Sainsbury rally around to end her Colombian prison nightmare

ACCUSED drug trafficker Cassie Sainsbury should be treated fairly by the Colombian legal system but would have to spend any jail time there because there’s no prisoner transfer agreement with Australia.

CASSIE Sainsbury should be treated fairly by the Colombian legal system but would have to spend any jail time in Colombia because there is no prisoner transfer agreement with Australia, legal experts say.

And being a foreigner may work in Ms Sainsbury’s favour, as the South American nation tries to improve its international reputation.

Flinders University Strategic Professor in Criminal Justice Andrew Goldsmith, a former consultant for the Colombian government who researched the police force and drug war, said the 22-year-old may face a long wait for a trial that would not be before a jury.

“Are there corrupt judges in a country like Colombia? Yes,” he said.

“(But) I’m not aware of any Colombian judges looking to make an example of someone like her because she’s a foreigner.

“I don’t think it would be a remarkable case. Drug mule cases are a dime a dozen in Colombia.”

Australian National University professor of international law Donald Rothwell believed there was a good chance of a fair trial.

“Colombia has of course had a fairly chequered political and legal history in recent years,” he said. “If Colombia is trying to rehabilitate itself in the light of the world they will try to make sure the case is dealt with fairly.”

Ms Sainsbury’s family has indicated a possible guilty plea to minimise a jail term, despite protesting her innocence.

Prof Rothwell said “the facts as reported are pretty much against her” because it was not in dispute that the cocaine was in her luggage, so it would be difficult to mount a successful defence.

“Australia doesn’t have a transfer of prisoners agreement so if there was a conviction she couldn’t rely on (that),” he said.

Family rallies to end Cassie’s prison hell

LITTLE more than two years ago, Cassandra Sainsbury was enjoying life on the Yorke Peninsula, scoring goals for her futsal team, volunteering with the Country Fire Service and looking forward to life ahead.

But today, the 22-year-old is grappling with a nightmare, locked up in one of Colombia’s worst and most dangerous prisons, wondering if her feet will again touch Australian soil before her 47th birthday.

The former personal trainer, who lives at Moana with her fiance Scott Broadbridge, is accused of trying to smuggle 5.8kg of cocaine — worth about $1.5m in Australia — back home on April 11 in headphones that were wedding gifts.

But Ms Sainsbury’s family deny the claims and say she is “innocent”, tricked into being a mule by a man she met while in Colombia on a working holiday.

Ms Sainsbury’s sister, Khala, said the former volunteer firefighter was just “10 minutes” away from boarding a plane back to Australia when authorities at El Dorado International Airport, in Bogotá, stopped her and arrested her on trafficking charges.

Now Ms Sainsbury, who her fiance describes as “an amazing girl”, waits in overcrowded El Buen Pastor prison. The filthy institution is home to murderers, drug dealers and other criminals.

If convicted, Ms Sainsbury faces a maximum of 25 years in the jail that Khala says is “hell on Earth”.

The women’s prison in Bogota, Colombia, where Cassandra Sainsbury is being held.
The women’s prison in Bogota, Colombia, where Cassandra Sainsbury is being held.

The family has been told a guilty plea could result in a minimum sentence of six years.

The call to fight the drugs charges, or plead guilty, will be the biggest decision Ms Sainsbury has ever had to make in her short life.

It’s certainly not something she thought she would ever face while growing up in on the Yorke Peninsula.

There Ms Sainsbury attended Yorketown High School and was a member of the Warooka CFS before moving to Adelaide. She was also a regular goalscorer for a Warooka futsal team.

The Advertiser understands Mr Broadbridge proposed on a cruise to Vanuatu and New Caledonia last year. Ms Sainsbury was looking forward to marrying the “love of her life” in February next year.

Ms Sainsbury was also an aspiring model and used her Instagram account to help promote her starnow profile.

Now the family has turned to a fundraising website to raise $15,000 for legal costs. Ms Sainsbury’s mother, Lisa Evans, wrote on the site she was “scared to death” for her daughter.

“As her mother I’m devastated that my little girl is in this place ... our family just wants her home safe,” she said.

However, many users of the website do not believe that Ms Sainsbury is innocent.

Mr Broadbridge has also taken to the site to defend his fiance.

Cassandra Sainsbury was arrested in Colombia for allegedly trying to smuggle cocaine out of the country.
Cassandra Sainsbury was arrested in Colombia for allegedly trying to smuggle cocaine out of the country.

“If you don’t know Cassie, and the respectful, loving, caring person that she is, don’t be so negative,” he wrote.

“If this happened to your family is this how you’d want people responding to your situation. Just be respectful, we’re trying to get an innocent girl back home where she belongs.”

Ms Sainsbury’s grandmother, Barbara Johns, posted a comment on FundRazr saying an innocent woman had taken the fall.

“Anyone who knows Cassie, knows she did not do this. It can happen to anyone, please help in anyway you can, large or small, it will all help to bring Cassie home,” she wrote.

Jasmin Broadbridge also defended her future sister-in-law on social media.

“We’re all supposed to unite in times like this but I’ve been reading the most hateful and negative comments that people have been writing about someone who is a total stranger to them,” she wrote on Facebook.

“You can assume what you want, but Cassie is a beautiful and strong person and everyone who knows her, even just a little bit, knows that there is absolutely no way she is guilty.”

- Ben Harvy

Original URL: https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/law-order/family-of-alleged-sa-drug-mule-cassandra-sainsbury-rally-around-to-end-her-colombian-prison-nightmare/news-story/b90d41445a9f1225ac2e289af7bf7951