Essen, Germany - A 25-year-old German woman who was convicted in Japan of drug smuggling has been sent to Germany to serve out the rest of her prison term, and is seeking parole, her lawyer said Monday. Andreas Kost said she had learned Japanese while serving four and half years of a seven-year sentence, but had found the Japanese jail, where the heating was kept low to save costs, too cold.
"She finds it agreeably warm in her Cologne prison," he said. Two German police officers accompanied her home to Germany two weeks ago.
She was convicted of smuggling 13,000 ecstasy pills into Japan in June 2004 on behalf of an acquaintance. She was arrested at a Tokyo airport and in March 2005 was sent to jail and fined 2 million yen (21,130 dollars at current rates).
"We want to apply now for the remainder of the term to be suspended," the lawyer said in Essen, western Germany. He said he would ask a young person's court in Cologne to decide, arguing that she had been immature at the time of the offence.
She was a schoolgirl in the city of Dortmund before her trip to Japan, and had planned to attend university.
