Sydney grandmother Maria Exposto back in Sydney after drug trafficking acquittal
The Australian grandmother duped by an online love scam has touched down in Sydney after spending five years behind bars in Malaysia.
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The Sydney woman who cheated the gallows in Malaysia after being acquitted of drug trafficking has touched down in Australia
Maria Exposto, 55, was greeted by media at Sydney airport after flying out from Kuala Lumpur with her son.
Exposto said she was “very happy” to be back on home soil and thanked her family for their support during her five years behind bars.
She said would visit her mother’s grave before returning to her home at Cabramatta West.
“I’m going to sleep like an angel. Like a little baby,” the grandmother of four said.
Exposto, who arrived home ahead of her birthday on December 20, also thanked those who assisted with her case.
She said she would travel again, but would not trust anyone so easily after she befriended a stranger who told her to take a package to Melbourne - one that was found to contain 1.5kg of crystal methamphetamine.
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Exposto’s lawyers had argued she was the “perfect textbook dummy” and the victim of an online romance scam.
She celebrated with a steak dinner and a glass of wine upon her release earlier this week.
“Those five years I did not have any,” she said.
“I’m thrilled. I am very happy because I can go home to my family.”
Her son Hugo said his family was delighted with the decision and that they “had just tried to take it one day at a time and do everything we can” throughout the five-year ordeal.
A bench of five judges delivered their findings in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.
Exposto – escorted into court shackled, wearing a purple blouse, short black hair and glasses – stood motionless as the verdict was read.
The relief in the court was palpable amid heavy sighs as the chief judge of Malaysia Tengku Maimum Binti Tuan Mat announced the ruling.
Defence lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said the Federal Court unanimously overturned Exposto’s conviction by an appellate court, ruling she was free after a five-year legal battle.
“The judges said this is not a case safe enough for them to declare a conviction … because there is so much dissatisfaction over the features and the evidence that have been presented,” he said.
Exposto, who appealed her conviction for drug trafficking, was initially found not guilty in a lower court after it heard she was set up in an online boyfriend scam by a man who identified himself as “Captain Daniel Smith,” a US soldier stationed in Afghanistan.
They arranged to meet in Shanghai but he failed to turn up.
Instead, Exposto befriended a stranger and she testified that he had asked her to take a black backpack, which she thought contained only clothes, to Melbourne.
In Kuala Lumpur customs officers found the packages of meth hidden inside the lining of the bag.
Prosecutors appealed against her first not guilty verdict and won, and she was sentenced to death early last year.
After yesterday’s verdict, defence lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said Exposto’s case was the first of its type in Malaysia with legal ramifications given the appalling “state of affairs of internet scams”.
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When told by customs officials the bag she was carrying contained ice, her response was “it can’t be”.
She thought they meant frozen water not crystal methamphetamine, also known as ice.
“Her behaviour was totally consistent with innocence,” Shafee told the five judges who were unanimous in reaching their verdict.
Malaysia has a mandatory death sentence for anyone found guilty of carrying more than 50 grams of a prohibited drug.