She was from Japan and Malaysia sentenced her to hang for 3.5 kg of methamphetamine. Now she can live

In a unanimous decision, a three-judge panel of the Federal Court replaced the death sentence handed down to Mariko Takeuchi, 50, with a prison term of 30 years from the date of her arrest in 2009, after considered an appeal requesting a lesser sentence.

Takeuchi lost her appeal in 2015, with the court upholding a lower court's rulings in which the former nurse was sentenced to hang for trafficking 3.5 kg of methamphetamine to Malaysia in 2009.

She filed an appeal for a lesser sentence after a law allowing prisoners sentenced to death or life imprisonment to apply for a reduced sentence came into force in September last year. The law was part of a judicial reform that abolished mandatory death or life sentences for 11 offenses, including drug trafficking, murder and terrorism.