Two Brits facing death penalty in Bali over '£1.3million cocaine plot'

Fear etched on their faces, two Brits facing the death penalty in Bali for a £1.3million cocaine drugsplot were today paraded in front of photographers.

Kial Robinson, 29, and Piran Ezra Wilkinson, 48, are currently being held by Bali's Narcotic Agency. Today the pair, both from Chichester, in West Sussex, were forced to appear before media outlets on the paradise island. Wearing orange prison jumpsuits, they were forced to hold the illegal haul allegedly found in landscape gardener Robinson's backpack when he was arrested at Bali's International Airport. He was allegedly carrying the package after boarding a Turkish Airlines flight from Barcelonaon September 3.

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He claimed he was offered $10,000 to peddle the drugs and was told to give them to someone who would come to a villa in Mengwi, Badung, near Canggu, according to sources. Property manager Wilkinson was arrested at a villa in the early hours of September 4.

"Wilkinson said he was ordered by a man named Santos to take the cocaine from Barcelona to Bali to deliver to a villa in Pererenan near Canggu," said Mr Rudi Sudrajati, chief of Bali’s Narcotics Board.

Police set up a sting operation and instructed Robinson to go ahead with the planned delivery to the villa, where Wilkinson was nabbed. Both face the potential death penalty if found guilty of the allegations.

The Narcotic Agency's spokesperson, Made Dwi Saputra, only confirmed that two British nationals had been arrested. "On Tuesday, we will carry out a modest ceremony to destroy some narcotic evidence, as well as a press release on several cases," Made Dwi said.

A spokesperson for the Foreign Office said: "We have been made aware of two British nationals who have been detained in Bali. We continue consular support for both and are in contact with the local authorities."

Indonesia has some of the strictest laws in drug smuggling and the crime carries a sentence of execution. In July, three Brits who had been warned they faced the death penalty for smuggling drugs into Bali hidden in Angel Delight packets were let off with just a one-year prison sentence.

The Indonesian court instead gave 12-month prison terms to the three British nationals, all from Hastings and St Leonards-on-Sea in East Sussex, who had been accused of drug running on the resort island.

Jonathan Christopher Collyer, 38, and Lisa Ellen Stocker, 39, were arrested on February 1 after being stopped at Bali's international airport with 17 packages of cocaine that weighed nearly a kilogram, according to public court records.

Convicted drug traffickers, especially those caught with large quantities, have in the past been executed by firing squad in Indonesia - including foreign nationals. If the quantity is large but not enough for the death penalty, life in prison is a common sentence.