British teenager Bella Culley has been told she will be released from Georgian prison, where she is being detained on drug-smuggling charges, if she pays a substantial fine, according to a report.
Ms Culley, 19, from Billingham, Teesside, disappeared while travelling in Thailand in May. She was found to have been arrested in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, accused of trying to smuggle 14kg of cannabis into the country.
She has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Ms Culley, who has been told she faces up to 20 years in the former Soviet country’s prison if arrested, is around five months pregnant. She previously told Georgian police she was forced to smuggle the drugs through torture.
Her lawyer, Malkhaz Salakaia, said: “Bella will become a mother soon, she is expecting a boy. I want her to feel this motherhood in freedom.”
On Tuesday, the Tbilisi City Court heard that defence and prosecution teams were negotiating the terms of a plea agreement, conditional on the payment of a sum of money with “many zeros”, the BBC reported.
Judge Giorgi Gelashvili previously denied Ms Culley’s plea for bail with a £13,752 surety.
The BBC reported that during the hearing, Ms Culley smiled at her family, saying: “I love you.” The teenager’s father, aunt and grandfather have previously been in attendance at the courtroom, according to reports.
The prosecution argued that Ms Culley posed a flight risk and could reoffend if allowed bail, the broadcaster reported. She remains in custody with her next hearing scheduled for 9 October, unless a deal is reached sooner.
A spokesperson for the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office said: “We are supporting a British woman who is detained in Georgia and are in contact with her family and the local authorities.”
The teenager was previously denied bail at a pre-trial hearing at the beginning of July. Mr Salakaia, her lawyer, said the teenager’s family was ready to pay the 50,000 Georgian Lari as bail money to get her out of prison, equivalent to nearly £14,000.
Speaking in court, Ms Culley said: “I did not want to do this. I was forced to do this through torture.”
“I just wanted to travel. I am a good person. I am a student at university. I am a clean person. I don’t do drugs.”
Mr Salakaia told the court that she had been threatened with a hot iron to coerce her into travelling with the suitcase filled with drugs. The teenager stood in front of the judge in the courtroom and showed her scarred right wrist.
Her lawyer claimed she had not been aware of what was in her suitcase, telling the court she tried to inform customs officers in Thailand “but nobody paid attention”, the BBC reported.
“She was instructed to fly to Georgia – she did not even know where Georgia was located geographically,” he said.
