PREGNANT drug mule suspect Bella Culley has only been visited once by Brit officials since she was thrown into a hellish ex-Soviet jail, her furious lawyer claims.
The 19-year-old was held up with £200,000 worth of drugs in Georgia on a flight from Thailand in May – and she faces 20 years behind bars.
@bellamay.xx / tiktokBella Culley’s lawyers say she has been visited once by Brit authorities[/caption]
The Brit teen was found with a huge stash of drugs after getting off a flight from Thailand
@bellamay.xx / tiktokShe is being held in a hellish Georgian prison[/caption]
Her fuming lawyer has also slammed the British embassy for not doing enough to help the 22-week pregnant teen.
Juvenile law expert Malakhaz Salakaia said he was “dissatisfied” with the British authorities for not supporting his client.
Bella, from Billingham on Teesside, claims she was forced into trafficking by a Thai gang which branded her with an iron and showed her beheading videos.
The Foreign Office said it was in contact with the Bella’s family – but made the shocking revelation that only one person had been to visit her in real life since May 16.
The and alleged teenage drug mule is currently locked up in a nightmare jail while a deal is made for her release.
The Brit holidaymaker’s family has been told she needs a “substantial” amount of money to go home or reduce her sentence – with sources saying the fee is close to £100,000.
Bella initially went missing in Thailand before eventually being arrested at Tbilisi International Airport in the ex-Soviet nation of Georgia on May 10.
Although the Brit claims she was burned with an iron by a Thai gang, and forced to fly to Tbilisi, prosecutors allege CCTV contradicts this.
Bella got pregnant after a fling with an unidentified British man on the first leg of her Far East trip and revealed she was expecting a baby boy at an earlier hearing..
She also claimed she had no idea where Georgia was and that she tried to raise the alarm when she boarded a flight from Bangkok.
Bella was caught at Tbilisi International Airport with 30 pounds of marijuana and hashish in her luggage on May 10.
The latest development comes as her lawyer Salakaia told The Sun that a deal between Georgian prosecutors was close to being completed.
Salakaia said: “Negotiations are close to completion.
“The higher the fine will be, the less time she will serve including the possibility of a full release.
“Thats what we are negotiating at the moment. At this moment Bella’s family isn’t ready to pay the amount requested.”
Bella Culley seen in court at the beginning of July as her devastated family watched on
She is being held in Georgia’s brutal Prison No.5
FacebookBella’s lawyers are working on a deal to get her freed[/caption]
Bella’s anguished family now face having to raise thousands to end her jail hell while the sums involved remain secret.
Her mum Lyanne Kennedy who lives in social housing has split from Bella’s dad Niel, who lives abroad as an oil rig technician.
The tearful mum said outside court this week: “It’s a lot of money for us.
“They offered us a layered approach, this and this much, to let her go immediately and then another offer where she serves some time.
“I don’t know what to do”.
Salakaia said at an earlier hearing: “There was no malicious intent on Bella’s part – she was pressured and forced and there is irrefutable evidence of that.
“Her testimony contains even the names and last names of the individuals who forced her to transport it, she was threatened, as well as her family, including her mother who is present today.
“I want to underline that she didn’t hand in the baggage – all she knows is that there is this luggage and she will be met by certain individuals once she arrives.
“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.
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”.
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