A teenage girl seized with three kilogrammes of cocaine in her luggage is set to escape death by firing squad in Bali after prosecutors asked for a lengthy jail term instead.

Accused Manuela Vitoria de Araujo Farias, 19, is now likely to be jailed for 12 years instead, a lenient sentence in the notoriously hard-line Indonesian justice system.

Friends and family of the Brazilian national feared she would face the death penalty but prosecutors have asked the court to jail Farias for 12 years,

Her lawyer Davi Lira da Silva said: “We start from the premise that if the prosecution itself does not plead for capital punishment, the judge will not give it […].”

Farias had claimed that she was tricked into smuggling the drugs into the country by a gang who, her lawyer said, had told her of temples on the island where they pray for the sick.

This was after her mother had suffered a stroke and Farias had decided to seek Buddhist prayers for a cure.

Her lawyer said: “They said that she could pray in the temples to ask for her mother’s healing.”

She was arrested at Bali International Airport in January after passing through airports in Brazil and Qatar after flying from Florianopolis in Brazil on 27th January.

The next trial date is scheduled for Tuesday, 30th May.

Farias is being held at the Kerobokan Women’s Prison.