Sponsored Vacation Turns Into Prison Nightmare For M'sian Woman

By Caroline Jackson KUCHING (Sarawak, Malaysia), March 6 (Bernama) -- For former 'drug mule' Wan Lydiawati Abdul Majid, an overseas vacation sponsored by an international drug trafficking syndicate in 2007, has become a nightmare that refuses to go away. Her gullibility was costly, to say the least. That trip saw the 26-year-old spending four painful years behind bars and doing hard labour at a prison in faraway Trinidad and Tobaga. Her crime? She was arrested by the authorities with 2.2kg of cocaine in her luggage. As a convict in a tiny cell which she shared with two other inmates, Wan Lydiawati's meals comprised a piece of brittle bread, often infested with worms or human hair. Her supply of piped water was from taps in the prison's toilet! Prior to her imprisonment, she had trusted a much older woman friend, known only as 'Kak Siti' -- with whom she had vacationed in Caracas, Venezuela. Later, she agreed to proceed to the Carribean islands, where she was caught with the drug. "Maybe, God put me in there (prison) for a reason. I least expected I would end up a convict in a foreign prison where life was very hard," said the former final year college student from Kuala Lumpur. She was sharing her experience as a victim of the drug trafficking syndicate at the Malaysian foreign ministry's Outreach and Public Diplomacy programme, officiated by deputy minister Richard Riot here Tuesday. Wan Lydiawati, who was accompanied by her mother, Sharifah Marina Zahari Razali, was released from prison, three days before Hari Raya last year, after she was sentenced for the drug offence. During her imprisonment, she recalled the hardship and daily struggles in the cell, drawing inspiration from her Muslim faith, as well as the thought of seeing her single mother and five other younger siblings, again. Earlier, Riot told a news conference that gullible victims were the target group of syndicates, accounting for the majority of the 889 Malaysians aged between 20-30, who were caught overseas for drug-related offences last year. He said the detainees, comprising 714 males and 175 females, were among a total of 1,941 Malaysians detained abroad for various offences, who did not have previous criminal records but were lured by smooth operators as they came from low-income job sectors or were unemployed. He said that last year, 22 of the drug-related detainees were from Sarawak (east Malaysia), including five young women, lured with the promise of vacations in China, Australia and other countries, in exchange for carrying packages, mainly from Nigeria. On the three-day programme, Riot said, it was to bring awareness and understanding among Malaysians on the roles and functions of the ministry and its diplomatic missions abroad, as well as share and address drug mule issues. -- BERNAMA