Jail sentence upheld for pill-posting Dane

The Phnom Penh Post
Tuesday, 08 September 2009 15:02 Chrann Chamroeun

THE Court of Appeal on Monday upheld a 15-year prison sentence against a Danish woman who was jailed for mailing some 10,000 Valium and codeine pills to the United States and United Kingdom for her son, who told her doing so would not be illegal, a court official and her lawyer said.

Johanne Vinther Axelsen, 55, who was sentenced in January, will remain behind bars as her lawyers try to take her case to the Supreme Court.

"Immediately after the court's decision, she was pulled into a car and taken to continue her sentence at Correctional Centre 2 in Phnom Penh," her Danish lawyer, Henrik Olesen, told the Danish Web site politiken.dk.

"In January she was sentenced for having sent 28 envelopes with pills to the United States. The charge is now that she sent 58 envelopes," Olesen was quoted as saying.

Samrith Sophal, one of three judges at the court, confirmed on Monday that Axelsen's appeal had been rejected.

Police told the court that all but one of the envelopes that were used as evidence against Axelsen had been destroyed, Olesen said.