Indonesia executions: Hope for death row British grandmother Lindsay Sandiford as UK diplomat’s ‘affair’ exposed

The lawyer for a British woman sentenced to death in Indonesia for drug smuggling has called on the Foreign Office to offer her more help, after the “staggering” dismissal of a key UK diplomat for allegedly having an affair with the man accused of being behind the cocaine plot.

Lindsay Sandiford, 58, from Teeside, who was caught in possession of drugs worth an estimated £1.6m when she arrived in Bali in May 2012, could be executed by firing squad within weeks.

Yet Alys Harahap, the British vice-consul in Bali who would be a key figure in efforts to prevent her death, is reported to have been sacked for an alleged relationship with Julian Ponder – the man Sandiford claims coerced her into trafficking the 8lb (3.6kg) of cocaine by threatening the life of her son.

Craig Tuck, Sandiford’s lawyer, has called for an inquiry into whether the affair had further jeopardised his client’s life. The grandmother is currently refusing support from British diplomats, at the very time the Indonesian government has declared that it will kill all drug convicts on death row by the end of the year.

Ms Harahap was first suspended after she was discovered apparently embracing Ponder in a prison governor’s office in April 2014, while giving the 44-year-old – known as Bali’s “Mr Big” and serving six years – consular assistance.

She has now been sacked over claims of an improper relationship with Ponder, who says he had phone sex from behind bars with the married diplomat. Ponder sent the Foreign Office up to 20 emails detailing their alleged trysts, and has said he has recordings of their sexually charged conversations.

In a statement released to the media in his native New Zealand, Mr Tuck said: “It is staggering that Britain’s top diplomat on the island where she [Sandiford] is on death row can have been involved in a romance by the man responsible for her appalling situation.”

He called for the Foreign Office to hold an inquiry into the affair and to reconsider its decision not to fund Sandiford’s appeal against her sentence following her conviction in December 2012.

A source quoted by the Mail on Sunday said that alleged encounters between Ms Harahap and Ponder involved petting but not full sex.

The Foreign office confirmed yesterday that a member of staff had been dismissed and was appealing the decision. A spokeswoman declined to address Mr Tuck’s call for an inquiry, saying only that the FCO was “closely following” Sandiford’s case.

She added that Sandiford had been receiving consular support until September 2014, when she declined to accept any further assistance. “We stand ready to offer her consular assistance and we would, of course, visit her in prison if she changed her mind,” the spokeswoman said.

It has been the policy of British governments not to fund legal assistance for British nationals abroad on cost grounds, a position upheld by the Supreme Court in 2013.