Drug Gran dies in prison for smuggling £1m of cocaine

A BRITISH gran jailed for smuggling £1million of cocaine has died in agony alone in a Portuguese prison.

Susan Clarke, 72, died of breast cancer last Sunday in the jail where she was serving eight years, The Sunday Mirror reports.

As her condition got worse she was granted a last visit from husband Roger, 73.

They had been caged two years ago and sent to separate jails.

A source told The Sunday Mirror Susan had been due to return to England to finish her sentence.

They said being without her family in her last hours must have been “torture”.

‘TORTURE’

The source said: “She was handed a life sentence – left to die in a foreign prison with no loved ones around her.

“Four weeks ago she was given one last visit with Roger. They saw each other through a Perspex window.

“She had a lump in her throat which meant she couldn’t actually speak.

“She was battling breast cancer but the doctors in Portugal decided that there was nothing they could do for her, so they stopped her treatment.

“She was in so much pain. Roger seems to think they had won a battle to come back to the UK to, so he’s devastated that she wasn’t well enough to make the move.”

She was battling breast cancer but the doctors in Portugal decided that there was nothing they could do for her, so they stopped her treatmentA Source To The Sunday Mirror

Clarke, from Chatham, Kent, was serving eight years in a maximum-security jail in Portugal following her conviction in September, 2019.

She had been sharing a rat-infested 10ft by 10ft cell with three other criminals in Lisbon’s women’s jail EP Tires.

Her husband has been serving the same term in another jail in Lisbon before being transferred a lower-security site.

They had been arrested after a tip-off when the Marco Polo liner they were on arrived at Lisbon from the Caribbean in December, 2018.

COCAINE CRUISE BUST

The pensioners had been in the middle of a dream £6,800 Caribbean cruise when Portuguese officials were tipped off by UK cops.

Cops found 20lb of cocaine in the linings of four suitcases.

Both claim they were duped into carrying the drugs by criminals despite being previously jailed in Norway in 2010 for smuggling large quantities of cannabis.

Roger claims he believed he was carrying exotic fruit which could be sold at Harrods.

‘DEATH SENTENCE’

Prosecutors said the cocaine was intended to be sold in the UK.

They said the Brit couple were drug mules who used four cruises in two years to smuggle narcotics for £26,500 a time.

Susan previously revealed how she had lost nearly three stone after being locked up, and feared she would die in prison after developing breast cancer.

She told The Sunday People: “I may never get out of here alive and there’s no way I can reduce my sentence now.

“We were made an example of but I’ve been handed a death sentence. My worry is that I’ll never be free and I’ll be leaving here in a box.”

The gran-of-eight said the worst part of her sentence was being apart from her husband.

She slammed UK authorities for not helping her and Roger after the couple lost an appeal against their sentence, saying: “We feel completely abandoned.

“The Foreign Office has ignored us, Boris Johnson has not helped and we have been completely cut adrift.”

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