Pregnant British ‘drug mule’ Bella Culley will likely spend two years in prison even after her family paid a six-figure fine to authorities.
Earlier this month, the 19-year-old’s family forked out £140,000 in a plea bargain, but Judge Giorgi Gelashvili will sentence her to a short stint in prison regardless.
Bella, a student nurse from Billingham, County Durham, went missing in Thailand before she was arrested 3,7000 miles away at Tbilisi International Airport on May 10 for allegedly smuggling a large amount of illegal drugs in her suitcase.
She claims she was tortured until she agreed to smuggle drugs out of Thailand, saying she was burned with a hot iron and shown a beheading video by a Thai gang.
Her mum, Lyanne Kennedy, 44, and father, Niel Culley, 49, paid the eye-watering fine in hopes of lessening their daughter’s sentence.
Sign up for all of the latest stories
Start your day informed with Metro’s News Updates newsletter or get Breaking News alerts the moment it happens.
Prosecutor Vakhtang Tsalugelashvili told Tbilisi City Court: ‘The plea bargain has been reached, our conditions have been met – two years of imprisonment and a fine of 500,000 Georgian Lari.’
Lawyers reportedly said that if the family had paid a larger fine, Bella could have walked free.
Bella pleaded guilty today, asking the judge if she could take her baby with her when she goes to prison.
Judge Gelashvili said, ‘Nobody is going to take the baby away from you.’
Bella is due to give birth in December, and will keep her child with her in prison, it is understood.
Her defence lawyer told the court today: ‘She pleaded guilty, fully cooperated with the investigation, and the plea bargain has just been reached. So we would like to ask the judge to release her on bail, given her advanced pregnancy.’
There is a chance the court could let her out on house arrest in the last month of her pregnancy, and for ten months afterwards.
Her lawyer, Malkhaz Salakai, previously told the court: ‘There was no malicious intent on Bella’s part – she was pressured and forced and there is irrefutable evidence of that.
‘The bag wasn’t even locked, and it went through three countries and two continents, while Bella to this day is unaware whether Tbilisi is a country or a city.
‘Bella didn’t commit this crime, and there are no grounds to doubt her testimony.’
The revelation that she was pregnant shocked the court in Georgia back in May. Her family were stunned to learn that their daughter had smuggled 34 packs of marijuana and 20 packs of hashish into the former Soviet country.
Mum Lyanne previously told The Sun: ‘I really didn’t want her to go to Thailand. I begged her to come home. I don’t trust some of the boys over there.
‘But she wanted to meet up with some friends she made over there on a previous trip. I don’t know who any of them are. When she stopped answering messages, I assumed it was because she was flying back to surprise me. But then nothing.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
