Nigeria jails French granny for cocaine smuggling

LAGOS, July 2 (AFP) – A Nigerian court on Friday sentenced a 52-year-old French woman to four years prison for smuggling cocaine into the west African country.

Justice Abdul Kafarati of the Federal High Court in Lagos said Jacqueline Vigouroux will spend two years in prison as her sentence “will run concurrently”.

The mother of five, and gradmother of two who has been in jail for almost 12 months, had pleaded guilty to the offence at a previous hearing.

Vigouroux, who is from the Bordeaux region of France, was caught last July at Abuja international airport, smuggling four kilogrammes (8.8 pounds) of cocaine into the country.

Defence lawyer Oluwakemi Shnayder had earlier pleaded leniency for her client because she was a first offender.

“The convict in this case committed an offence for which she should be punished. However, I plead for utmost leniency and urge this honourable court to temper justice with mercy,” she said.

“The convict is a first offender. She has no previous criminal record in Nigeria or anywhere else. She has aided the speedy and expeditious trial of this case by pleading guilty on her first appearance,” she added.

The judge said the lawyers’s plea for mitigation was taken into consideration before sentencing the convict.

Subject: French news