A British teenager accused of smuggling a £250,000 (11.2 million baht) haul of cannabis into Georgia broke down in tears in court, and showed a snake-like scar she says proves she was tortured and forced into the crime.
Bella Culley, from from Billingham, County Durham, in the North-East of England, could face life behind bars if found guilty of trafficking nearly 14 kilogrammes of cannabis and hashish into the country.
But at a tense pre-trial hearing in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, the tearful student begged for mercy and rolled up her sleeve to reveal a long scar on her right arm, allegedly caused by a burning iron in Thailand.
“I didn’t want to do this,” she told the court. “I was forced by torture. I just wanted to travel. I study at university to become a nurse. I’m clean, nothing showed in my blood test. I wanted to make my family proud.”
Culley vanished in Thailand earlier this year before resurfacing in the former Soviet-Bloc, Georgia, in May, where she was arrested with a suitcase allegedly packed with drugs.
Her defence team say she had no idea what was in the luggage and thought she was simply flying to “help someone” after being handed a passport and a flight ticket.
“She doesn’t even know where she is,” her lawyer Malkhaz Salakaia told the judge. “She thought Tbilisi was a country.”
The court heard that Cully, who revealed she was pregnant shortly after she was arrested, tried to alert passport control, but claims she was ignored and even approached a policeman for help, only to find he was allegedly part of the smuggling gang.
During the hour-long hearing, the teenager stood up, wiped away tears, and showed the scar on her arm, while her dad Niel and aunt watched from the gallery. Her lawyer pleaded for bail, arguing she posed no flight risk but the request was denied, The Mirror reported.
As she was led away in tears, her family called out: “Try not to worry. Good girl.”
Culley is set to reappear in court on Friday, July 10.
The story Cannabis cargo: British teen’s ‘snake-like’ scar tale in Georgia as seen on Thaiger News.
