China jails ex-Jap politician for smuggling drugs in shoes

BEIJING: A court in southern China sentenced a former politician from Japan to life imprisonment on Friday for attempting to smuggle drugs out of the country hidden in the soles of platform shoes.

76-year-old Takuma Sakuragi was caught at an airport in 2013 with 3.29 kilogrammes of methamphetamine hidden in the handle of his suitcase and in the soles of "women’s foam sandals" inside the case, according to a report published on an official court website.

Sakuragi, a former city councillor in Japan’s Aichi Prefecture, was attempting to fly from Guangzhou to Japan via Shanghai. Sakuragi said at the trial that he had been asked to transport the suitcase to Japan by a Nigerian acquaintance, but had not known that it contained methamphetamine, Kyodo News reported.

Two other people, a Malian national identified on the court’s livestream page as Aly Yattabare and Guinean national Mohamed Soumah, were arrested by police weeks later and believed to have packed the drugs into the suitcase.