BRITISH drug mule suspect Bella Culley was shown a horrifying video of a beheading by evil drug traffickers – and warned she faced the same fate, her lawyer claimed yesterday.
Backpacker Bella, 18, told her legal team that she fell into the clutches of a British-led gang of drug runners while on holiday in Thailand.
Bella was seen in court this week as her devastated family watched on[/caption]
Cannabis was found wrapped in air-tight bags in Bella’s luggage, police said[/caption]
And she will deny knowingly importing drugs worth £200,000 into the former Soviet state of Georgia claiming she was in fear of life when she was put on the flight from Bangkok in May.
Trainee nurse Bella – who got pregnant on her Far East trip – claimed the gang also threatened to harm her parents and 16-year-old brother claiming they knew where they lived.
And she texted a desperate two word plea “HELP ME” to her family after being “branded” on the arm with an iron as a warning.
Bella from Billingham, County Durham, claimed she never saw a bag containing £200,000-worth of cannabis which was checked in under her name by a gang member.
Her frantic family launched a missing person hunt in Thailand after she vanished on holiday but she turned up under arrest 4,000 miles away in the former Soviet state.
Her Georgian lawyer Malkhaz Salakaia claimed the gang terrorised the teenager into becoming a mule.
He told The Sun: “They told her: ‘We know the addresses of your parents, we know where your 16-year-old brother is.’
“They made her watch a video of a man being decapitated and told her: ‘If you don’t do as you are told, this is what is going to happen to you and your family.’
“She felt queasy and almost fainted but they still forced her to watch it”
Bella – who wept in court on Monday as she appeared with her baby bump visible for the first time – has stressed the British father of her child was not a gang member
And she went on to describe the horror of her “branding” to Mr Salakaia.
He told The Sun: “On the inside of her right arm there is a mark from this coercion.
“She was, so to say, branded – a hot iron was pressed on her arm.
“She was forced to do this – there was both psychological and physical pressure, the trace of which is still visible.
“As to her connection with this group, she knew several of them – they are British.
“At first she knew one, and then through him met the others. However, we have grounds to assume that this group also had local accomplices, including in Thailand.”
Mr Salakaia said by the time Bella managed to send a desperate text to her family, it was too late for them to stop her disastrous journey to Georgia.
Mr Salakaia said: “Bella sent an SMS to her family asking for help, saying: HELP ME, but by the time the family reacted it was too late.
Bella has now been locked up for six weeks in Georgia[/caption]
Bella has said she never touched the drugs found in her suitcase[/caption]
“The instruction, or rather threat, she was given consisted of the following: ‘You will take this luggage and carry it from point A to point B, to this or that country, or we will kill you.
“There is no talk of any potential reward or deal — Bella was simply forced to do this.
“The speculation that one of them is the father of Bella’s child does not correspond to the truth – I categorically deny this. There is no connection.
“I cannot say whether the father of the child knows about Bella’s situation.”
Mr Salakaia told how Bella tried in vain to raise the alarm – but discovered to her horror that Thai cops she tried to tip off were linked to the gang.
He said: “There was a very alarming episode while she was still in Bangkok. Bella seized a moment to go to some policemen – there were three of them, standing on the street.
“She told them: ‘I have a problem, this is happening, there is pressure on me, help me.’
“They spoke with her for 20 minutes and then returned her exactly to the same people she had run away from.
“This allows the simplest conclusion – that this group had things arranged with the local police.”
Mr Salakaia said Bella did not see the suitcase containing 31lb of cannabis in vacuum-sealed bags until a customs officer in Georgian capital Tbilisi showed it to her.
The teenager had no idea where Tbilisi was and no idea why she was there, he said.
Mr Salakaia told The Sun: “They marked this luggage, approached Bella and asked her: ‘Is this your luggage?’
“She said: ‘This was sent, it is not mine, I do not know what this is, but I was told I would be met, but who, I don’t know.’
“When she was leaving they told her that the person who should meet her would have her photo and her mission would be complete.
“It would have been better for Bella to come out and then be detained – after all, she was already under surveillance anyway.
“They would have seen who was to meet her. In this case the operation stopped with Bella – the full stop was put prematurely.
“The luggage was not checked in by her – her luggage was checked in by someone else. The luggage was simply registered to her.”
Bella, in a pink t-shirt with her hair in a bun, burst into tears at a court appearance on Monday where she was supported by her father Niel, 39, aunt Kerrie and grandad William Culley.
Mr Salakaia said Bella – who was refused bail on Monday – will deny drug trafficking charges which carry a minimum sentence of 15 years in jail.
The high profile lawyer – a former investigator who worked on the assassination attempts on former Georgian President Shevardnadze – said he would push for a fine and deportation.
Bella – who says she is happy with conditions at tough No5 Women’s Penitentiary on the outskirts of Tbilisi – is next due in court on July 10.
Inside the dark world of Brit ‘drug mules’
A SLEW of drug mule arrests involving Brits have emerged in the last few months.
In April and May, two Brit women were arrested abroad for alleged drug smuggling.
Bella was the first after she allegedly tried to smuggle a suitcase of weed into Georgia.
Meanwhile, former air stewardess Charlotte May Lee was also caught allegedly trying to smuggle drugs worth £1.2million into Sri Lanka.
Her two suitcases were said to have been stuffed with 46kg of a synthetic cannabis strain known as kush — which is 25 times more potent than opioid fentanyl.
If found guilty, South Londoner Charlotte could face a 25-year sentence.
As a young mum was detained in Germany for allegedly smuggling cannabis in her bags on a flight from Thailand – in yet another shocking case.
Glamorous Cameron Bradford, 21, from Knebworth, Herts, was detained at Munich Airport on April 21 as she tried to collect her luggage.
It comes as a Brit couple claiming to be tourists from Thailand have been busted with more than 33kg of cannabis in their suitcases at a Spanish airport.
The pair were picked out by suspicious cops at Valencia Airport after displaying a “nervous and evasive attitude” and are now behind bars on drug trafficking charges.
Experts told The Sun how wannabe Brit Insta stars are being lured by cruel gangs into carting drugs across the world.
Then last month, a six-year-old British boy was arrested in Mauritius suspected of smuggling part of a £1.6million dope haul stuffed inside his wheelie case.
The lad was picked up by customs officials along with his mum and five other Brits as they arrived on the tropical island.
Authorities branded the use of a child in the audacious drug smuggling plot as “inhumane”.
