Japanese court convicts Australian who says she was tricked into smuggling drugs

CHIBA, Japan — A Japanese court on Wednesday sentenced an Australian woman to six years in prison for smuggling amphetamines into the country, despite accepting her testimony that she was tricked as part of an online romance scam.

The Chiba District Court said it found Donna Nelson, 58, from Perth, Australia, guilty of violating the stimulants control and customs laws. It ordered her to pay a fine of 1 million yen ($6,671) in addition to serving a prison term.

Nelson was arrested at Japan's Narita International Airport, near Tokyo, on Jan. 3, 2023, after customs officials found about 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of phenylaminopropane, a stimulant, hidden under a false bottom in a suitcase she was carrying as checked luggage.

Nelson told the court that she did not know that drugs were hidden in the suitcase and that she was carrying them for a man she hoped to marry.

The man, whom she met online in 2020, told her he was the Nigerian owner of a fashion business. In 2023, he paid to travel to Japan via Laos, and asked her to collect dress samples from an acquaintance in Laos, the court said in the ruling. She was supposed to meet him in Japan but he never showed up, according to prosecutors.

Nelson has already been in custody for nearly two years. The court said 430 days of that will be counted toward her sentence.

Presiding Judge Masakazu Kamakura said that although Nelson was deceived, she had a sense that something was wrong with the arrangement and that something illegal could be hidden in the suitcase, and she could have stopped.

Kamakura said Nelson was taken advantage of her desire to marry the man and that there is room for ''sympathy'' for what she did.

He imposed a shorter sentence than would be typical for the amount of drugs she was carrying, after prosecutors had demanded 10 years in prison and a fine of 3 million yen (about $20,000).

Nelson's lawyer Rie Nishida said the ruling was unjust and that she planned to appeal. ''We will fight until the end,'' she said.

On Wednesday, Nelson sobbed as the verdict was read out. One of her daughters, Kristal Hilaire, wiped away tears as she looked on from her seat in the audience.

''We are disappointed and devastated by the court's verdict in our mum's case," Hilaire told reporters outside the court. ''We maintain that our mum was the victim of a romance scam. She is the victim of a crime and not a criminal. She has always been against drugs.''

Hilaire said the past few weeks had been a difficult time for the family but that they have come together to support each other and Nelson during the trial, and that they will keep fighting ''until we can bring her home.''

But Hillaire said she is worried about her mother, devastated and much thinner. ''I worry about how she would handle another six years.''

Several other family members who attended earlier sessions, seeing Nelson for the first time since her arrest nearly two years ago, returned home ahead of the verdict.

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Associated Press video journalists Mayuko Ono in Chiba and Ayaka McGill in Tokyo contributed.