BRITON Samantha Orobator – sentenced to life imprisonment by a Laos court for trafficking heroin – was caught with the evidence on her body at Vientiane airport, according to police (Echo, June 4).

She pleaded guilty and reportedly named several of her accomplices. She has been manipulative and dishonest about her pregnancy – which saved her from a possible death sentence – yet she may be repatriated to serve her sentence in Britain.

The utter misery and despair of drug addicts and their friends and family is such that I am amazed anyone can feel compassion for any drug trafficker.

Last week, we also learned that an entirely innocent British hostage, Edwin Dyer, was murdered in Mali by the North African wing of al Qaida (Echo, also June 4). Can you imagine his feelings when other hostages were ransomed?

Al Qaida wanted a prisoner of Britain set free as part of Mr Dyer’s ransom. That is a matter of conscience, but if we take the moral high ground and abandon to his fate such an innocent man can anyone justify the immediate response we have had to a peddler of miserable death?

The “bleeding heart” liberals should be ignored, and the media should describe a drug trafficker other than as “a pregnant Briton”.

Gerard Wild, Richmond, North Yorkshire.