Egypt sentences UK pensioner to death for drug smuggling: Oxford graduate, 74, guilty over £3million cannabis haul  

Court ruled Charles Raymond Ferndale was part of 'an international gang'

The sentences were confirmed by a court in Hurghada, a tourist city on the Red Sea coast, yesterday where a fine of 85million Egyptian pounds (£8million) was also imposed.

Executions in Egypt are usually carried out by hanging.

Ferndale, who is said to divide his time between the UK and Pakistan, was accused of attempting to smuggle three tons of the cannabis product hashish, worth almost £3million, in 118 bags into Egypt aboard his boat and being part of an ‘international gang'

The pensioner, three men from the Seychelles and one from Pakistan were arrested by armed police aboard a vessel near the Red Sea coastal town of Marsa Alam in 2011.

The Pakistani man is said to have fled the scene and to have been sentenced to death in absentia.
Positioned in south-eastern Egypt, and located on the western shore of the Red Sea, Marsa Alam is a popular spot for tourists and in particular yachts and sailors.

Egyptian investigators said that they boarded Ferndale's vessel and discovered the hashish hidden and in sacks disguised as food supplies.

Some reports described the vessel as a yacht, others a small ship.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: ‘We are opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances.

Our consular team in Cairo are in contact with the British prisoner and we will do our utmost to prevent this execution.'

Ferndale, who is said to have been living mostly in the Pakistan port city of Karachi, and those convicted with him are expected to lodge an appeal against the sentence within the next 28 days.

Egyptian officials said yesterday they believed the bags of hashish had originated in Pakistan although a spokesman in the capital Islamabad said it was unaware of the case.

Anti-death penalty campaigner Kim Manning Cooper, of Amnesty International UK, said: ‘This is extremely worrying news.

‘The death penalty is cruel and unnecessary in all circumstances, but international standards clearly stipulate that capital punishment should never be imposed in non-lethal cases like this one

‘We will be pressing for the sentence against Mr Ferndale and the others in this case to be commuted.

‘Executions were something we saw almost every year in Egypt during Hosni Mubarak's long authoritarian rule. Egypt should immediately impose a complete moratorium on the death penalty.'

Amnesty claims that 91 people were sentenced to death in Egypt last year, although it is not thought that anyone has been executed for two years.

There have been no executions of Europeans for more than 20 years, officials in Cairo said.

There is also concern over fair trials in the country. A recent report claims that some 1,100 people failed to get a fair trial from the Egyptian courts in the past year.

In recent years, Ferndale has written for both the British and Pakistani media on subjects including terrorism, Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, the Middle East and Afghanistan.

He claims to have a degree from the Institute of Psychiatry in London and lists his occupation as charity worker.

The other men convicted in Egypt were named as Ronny Norman Jean, 41, Yvon John Vinda, 38, Dean Dominic Loze, 27, all from the Seychelles, and Munawar Saeed Khan, 44, from Pakistan.

Ferndale's case mirrors in some ways the plight of British grandmother Lindsay Sandiford.

She is in a Bali jail having been sentenced to death - by firing squad - after being convicted of trying to smuggle cocaine on to the holiday island in May 2012.

The 56-year-old is appealing against the death sentence.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk 04/06/2013