Cassie Sainsbury’s lawyer says she wants Australian taxpayers to fund her defence on cocaine charges
CASSIE Sainsbury’s legal team wants Australian taxpayers to help pay for her defence on drug smuggling charges.
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EXCLUSIVE
Cassie Sainsbury’s legal team is asking Australian taxpayers to help pay for her defence on drug smuggling charges.
The Bogota lawyer for the 22-year-old South Australian told News Corp Australia he and Sainsbury filled out paperwork to apply for the financial assistance last Wednesday.
“When I saw her she signed documents for her lawyer in Australia. They are looking for state funds in Australia for the legal costs, so she was signing a form for that, to put before the government there,” Orlando Herran said in Bogota.
“I have no idea how much they are looking for. It is to cover the lawyer’s fees in Australia.”
When asked if the funding would also cover his fees, Mr Herran said: “Possibly”.
Sainsbury is currently in El Buen Pastor prison in Bogota, weighing up whether to take her lawyers’ advice to plead guilty to trying to smuggle 5.8kg out of Colombia to Australia.
She was arrested on April 11 at El Dorado international airport after local police received a tip-off from the US Drug Enforcement Agency.
Sainsbury says she is innocent and has told her family and lawyers she was tricked into carrying the drugs, thinking they were instead 18 plastic wrapped packages of headphones.
Mr Herran didn’t wish to elaborate further on the funding but the federal government does offer financial support to Australians in trouble overseas through prison loans, and in some cases, the Serious Overseas Criminal Matters Scheme.
The scheme, which is administered by the Attorney General’s Department, is available to those arrested overseas if they face more than 20 years or the death penalty.
Sainsbury has been advised she faces a maximum of between eight and 25 years prison. If she pleads guilty Mr Herran said she could receive as little as four years jail.
The fund paid part of the long running legal costs of the executed Bali Nine members Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, as well as Schapelle Corby.
Sainsbury’s family and fiancé have retained two high profile Australian lawyers, as well as Mr Herran in Bogota, and at least one of them is expected to arrive in the Colombian capital this week.
Under the funding scheme, which is not capped, counsel can be paid a rate of $2640 to $3600 a day, according to fact sheet published in 2012.
The fund is not intended to pay for private counsel when a state appointed lawyer is available.
The Attorney General’s Department said it would not comment on individual applications for funding under the scheme.
Sainsbury is being held in the minimum-security patio five of El Buen Pastor, and under Colombia’s justice system would receive a sentence reduction of a day for every two days she works in the prison, according to Mr Herran.
A prisoner in another section of the jail described this wing as “the best one to be in. It’s all foreigners, fraud cases, drug smugglers and no violent criminals”.
Inmates wake from 4am to queue for showers and are free to explore their own patios until 5pm, when they are locked on to their own floors.