Family members of Australian citizen Donna Nelson speak to media before heading to the Chiba District Court on the opening day of the trial over Nelson for allegedly attempting to import drugs into Japan Monday, Nov. 18, 2024, in Chiba, east of Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
An Australian woman accused of smuggling amphetamines in a suitcase appeared in a Japanese court nearly two years after her arrest, saying she is innocent and that she was tricked into carrying them as part of an online romance scam.
Donna Nelson from Perth, Australia, was arrested at Japan’s Narita International Airport just outside Tokyo when customs officials found about 2kg of stimulants, or phenylaminopropane, hidden in a double-bottom suitcase she was carrying.
Nelson, 58, said she received the suitcase from an acquaintance of a man she met on social media and brought it from Laos to Tokyo as instructed.
She was supposed to meet the man in Japan but he never showed up, prosecutors said. She was arrested on the spot and later charged with violating stimulants control and customs laws.
Monday’s trial comes just weeks after the recent acquittal of an 88-year-old former boxer, Iwao Hakamada, who was on death row for about half a century on wrongful murder convictions.
Nelson, in a brief statement at the Chiba District Court near Tokyo, said she did not know the drugs were hidden in the suitcase and that she was carrying them for a man she thought she loved.
Prosecutors acknowledged the case is linked to a romance scam but accused Nelson of smuggling the drugs, claiming she knew the contents of the suitcase.
During Monday’s session, Nelson’s lawyer Rie Nishida said her client is the victim of a romance scam and that she “had her trust and love taken advantage of”.Nishida said that customs officials’ limited English-language ability led to mistranslations and the accusation that Nelson knew what she was carrying. — AP
