ONTARIO WOMAN JAILED 25 YEARS IN PAKISTAN AFTER HEROIN CONVICTION

A Pakistani court has sentenced an Ontario woman to 25 years in
prison after heroin was found in a suitcase the mother of three
claimed was not hers.

Deborah Kerr of Brighton, Ont., was sentenced for drug trafficking on
Wednesday, Foreign Affairs official Alain Cacchione confirmed
yesterday. A co-accused was acquitted, he said.

Kerr, 36, was en route to Canada when she was arrested at an
Islamabad airport on Feb. 1, 2007. Authorities discovered 6.2
kilograms in luggage near to where Kerr was standing. Canadian
officials who ensured Kerr received proper legal counsel overseas
said yesterday they were awaiting confirmation from Pakistan that
Kerr would appeal her sentence.

Canada and Pakistan do not have a prisoner-exchange program, making
it less likely that Kerr will be able to return to Canada once she
has served one-third of her sentence.

In a letter to the National Post in April, 2008, Kerr's sister, Sheri
Gonyea, said that in January, 2007, Kerr travelled to Pakistan with
Saleem Khan, the father of her two younger children. "On my sister's
return home from Pakistan, during the third week of January, 2007,
she was detained at the airport after 6.2 kilograms of heroin were
found in a suitcase that someone had dropped beside her," the letter
stated. Kerr had not been charged, was losing weight, "mentally
fading" and was without proper clothing, Ms. Gonyea said.

In the space of a few months, however, Kerr's family began to
question the forthrightness of her claims of false imprisonment.

"We are all puzzled with what the truth is," Ms. Gonyea told the
Toronto Sun in June. At around the same time, Kerr told Belleville
radio talk show host Bill Holland, "everything my family is doing is
vindictive."

The identity of the co-accused or the circumstances of the
co-accused's release could not be confirmed yesterday by Mr.
Cacchione. However, those familiar with the case said Mr. Khan was
arrested in connection with drug trafficking at the same time as Kerr.

Earlier reports suggested that Kerr was in Pakistan to marry Mr.
Khan's adult son.