Lindsay Sandiford, 69, was sentenced to death in Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of drug trafficking.

Indonesia has some of the world's toughest drug laws, but has moved to release more than half a dozen high-profile detainees in the last year.

Sandiford was released on humanitarian grounds along with Shahab Shahabadi, 36, who had been serving a life sentence for drug offenses after his arrest in 2014.

Both left Bali on a Qatar Airways flight to London via Doha, an official from the Office of Coordinating Law, Human Rights, Immigration and Correctional Services Minister confirmed to AFP on Friday.

Sandiford left Heathrow's Terminal 4 in a wheelchair on Friday accompanied by security staff, without speaking and covering her face with her jacket. 

Their "detention will be moved to the [UK]" under the bilateral deal, said I Nyoman Gede Surya Mataram of the Office of Coordinating Law, Human Rights, Immigration and Correctional Services Minister, at a handover ceremony at Kerobokan Penitentiary in Bali on Thursday.

The UK government would now be "fully responsible for the legal decision that will be given there, but still respecting our legal decision", he added.

Health problems

Sandiford was jailed after Indonesian customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated $2.14 million hidden in a false bottom of her suitcase when she landed in Bali in 2012.

Sandiford admitted the offences, but said she had agreed to carry the narcotics after a drug syndicate threatened to kill her son.

The repatriation comes after Coordinating Law, Human Rights, Immigration and Correcitonal Services Minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra signed a deal with British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper last month for their transfer.

Both prisoners are suffering from severe health problems.

Yusril said last month that Sandiford was "seriously ill", while Shahabadi was "suffering from various serious illnesses, including mental health issues".

Matthew Downing, Britain's deputy ambassador to Indonesia, said the two were being repatriated on "humanitarian grounds". 

"When they first arrive in the UK, the priority will be about their health," he said. "So they'll be going through a health assessment, and any treatment and rehabilitation that they need."

The two will be "governed by the law and procedures of the UK" government upon their return, Downing said.

'Goodbye letters'

Sandiford's case caught tabloid attention in Britain, with one newspaper publishing in 2015 an article in which she detailed her fear of death.

"My execution is imminent, and I know I might die at any time now," she wrote in the Mail on Sunday. "I have started to write goodbye letters to members of my family."

As of August, nearly 600 inmates were on death row in Indonesia, according to the rights group Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), citing official data.

Among them are around 90 foreigners, according to the immigration and correction ministry.

Indonesia last carried out executions in 2016, killing one of its own citizens and three Nigerian drug convicts by firing squad.

President Prabowo Subianto's administration has repatriated several high-profile inmates since he took office in 2024, including the last five members of the so-called "Bali Nine" drug ring.

French national Serge Atlaoui, 61, was returned home in February after 18 years on death row.

In December, Filipina inmate Mary Jane Veloso tearfully reunited with her family after nearly 15 years on death row.

Human rights groups have lauded the government's move. 

"Repatriating foreign nationals who are facing the death penalty in Indonesia indirectly saves them from the threat of execution if the death penalty has been abolished in their home country," Amnesty International Indonesia's executive director Usman Hamid said in a statement Friday. 

He argued it could help win "the release of Indonesian citizens who are facing the death penalty abroad".