Hanoi - A pregnant Briton sentenced to life in prison in Laos for drug-trafficking will be sent home on Thursday to serve out her sentence, a Lao foreign ministry spokesperson said.
Samantha Orobator, 20, who was first arrested a year ago, will fly to Bangkok and then on to Britain, spokesperson Khenthong Nuanthasing told reporters on Wednesday.
"She will be transferred tomorrow evening," the spokesperson said.
"She has served one year in Laos, the rest will be served in the UK - we got assurances from the UK side."
A court in Vientiane convicted Orobator in June of trafficking 680 grams of heroin almost a year ago, when she was caught trying to board a plane to Thailand.
Continues Below ↓
Normally, anyone found with more than 500 grams of heroin faces execution but the Lao government gave assurances to Britain that a pregnant woman would not receive the death penalty, and she was instead given a life sentence.
Last week, Britain and Laos signed an agreement paving the way for the transfer of Orobator.
The two sides had already signed a prisoner transfer agreement in May.
But as it was taking time to put the measure into effect, a special memorandum of understanding was signed to allow Orobator to leave while she could still fly, British officials have said.
British legal charity Reprieve, which earlier sent a representative to Laos in a bid to assist Orobator, has said she is due to give birth in September.
It remains unclear how Orobator became pregnant while in jail, but her mother Jane said in late May that her daughter was not sexually assaulted in prison and that the father of her unborn child was not a Lao prison official. - AFP
|
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Digg
Delicious
Newsvine
Facebook
muti
Twitter
