The parents of pregnant teenager Bella Culley, a drug mule, will ask for a presidential pardon to allow her to leave a grim ex-Soviet prison before having her baby.
Bella, 19, was stunned today when a judge in Georgia He jailed her for two years after her family managed to raise £140,000 of a huge £215,000 fine.
She now faces having her baby in hospital before being forced to return to the grim No5 Women’s Penitentiary, near the capital, Tbilisi.
But his lawyer Malkhaz Salakaia revealed today that the family will now apologize to Georgian President Mikheil Kavelashvili, a former Manchester City footballer.
The final cry for mercy will be in light of her pregnancy and her claims that a brutal drug gang forced her to transport £200,000 worth of cannabis from Thailand.
Salakaia said: “Once the plea deal is finalized, we will apply for a presidential pardon on her behalf, citing her pregnancy and other mitigating factors.
“If the pardon is granted, he will leave the country immediately.
“There is also the possibility of early release on parole, although that decision falls entirely within the authority of the prison system.”
Salakaia said that if the president rejects the family’s request, Bella will give birth in a hospital and then return to custody, where she will raise her son.
He added: “You will be provided with a separate, specially equipped room that meets all necessary standards.
“Georgian bass law“If she had already been a mother at the time of her arrest, she would not have been incarcerated until her son was one year old, but that was not the case here.”
Former striker President Kavelashvili, 53, signed for Manchester City in 1995 and scored just three goals in 28 games.
Protesters waving their own college diplomas and kicking soccer balls mocked him for lacking higher education on his election day.
Kavelashvili, who scored just one Premier League goal for City, is a member of the ruling Georgian Dream Party, which is increasingly authoritarian and pro-Russian.
He assumed the presidency after a fiercely contested parliamentary election last year that critics say was orchestrated by Vladimir Putin.
Sources said Bella’s clemency plea is unlikely to be successful.
Bella’s two-year sentence will be reduced by six months for time already served.
His mother Lyanne Kennedy is making plans to move to Georgia to help raise the child, she revealed outside. court today.
Bella – who is expected to have her baby sooner Christmas – seemed stunned when the two-year sentence was announced in a Tbilisi court today.
His family was desperately trying to clarify arrangements for the birth amid suggestions he could be granted a period of house arrest as he approaches his term.
Lyanne, 44, said she did not want the baby to spend time in prison and would be willing to move to Georgia.
After the hearing he said, “We want to know more about house arrest; I would have to come to Georgia to help.”
The Teesside teenager’s parents were given just three weeks to raise £215,000 to secure her freedom earlier this month – but they have no property.
Lyanne from Billingham, Teesside and oil The platform technician’s father, Niel Culley, 49, came agonizingly close to the total.
But after Niel hands over £140,000, a two-year sentence will be activated, with less free time for time already spent in custody.
In pleading guilty, Bella, 19, asked her lawyer Malkhaz Salakaia: “Will I be able to take the baby if I go back to prison?”
Mr Salakaia Gelashvili responded: “No one is going to take your baby away from you.”
Bella became pregnant by a British man before joining a Thai drug gang which she claims forced her to smuggle drugs on a return flight from Bangkok to Tbilisi in May.
The teenager didn’t even know Georgia was a country when she was arrested upon landing in the capital, Tbilisi, in May.
She has insisted a British gang threatened to kill her family if she did not do as they were told before she was found with £200,000 worth of cannabis in her luggage.
Bella also claimed to have been burned with a hot iron and the gang showed her beheading videos before running off with the mule.
Prosecutor Vakhtang Tsalugelashvili told the Tbilisi City Court: “A plea deal has been reached, our conditions have been met: two years in prison and a fine of 500,000 Georgian lari.”
Mr Salakaia, defending, said: “I can confirm this. All relevant parties have also been informed. We would like to ask the judge to schedule a final hearing to deliver the final verdict.
“She pleaded guilty, cooperated fully with the investigationand a plea deal was just reached. That is why we would like to ask the judge to release her on bail, given her advanced pregnancy.”
But Judge Giorgi Gelashvili said: “I am afraid there are no legal grounds to change his conditions” after a doctor ruled his conditions “satisfactory”.
FOOTBALLER OUT
Soccer star dies tragically at 42 after battle with cancer
CHA-CHA-CHAOS
Strictly’s Amber Davies breaks silence after professional Nikita was photographed kissing her
Bella waved to her mother as she was carried away. Lawyers later confirmed that if the family had paid the full amount, the teenager could have been released immediately.
He flew to Tbilisi, thinking that was the name of a country, not knowing that he had 31 pounds of illegal cargo hidden in his suitcases.
Inside the dark world of British ‘drug mules’
A TON of drug mule arrests involving Brits have emerged in recent months.
In April and May, two British women were arrested abroad for alleged drug trafficking.
Bella was the first after she allegedly tried to smuggle a suitcase of marijuana into Georgia.
Meanwhile, former stewardess Charlotte May Lee was also caught allegedly trying to smuggle drugs worth £1.2 million into Sri Lanka.
His two suitcases were said to be filled with 46kg of a strain of synthetic cannabis known as kush, which is 25 times more potent than the opioid fentanyl.
If convicted, Charlotte, a south London resident, could face a 25-year sentence.
A young mother was arrested in Germany for allegedly smuggling cannabis in her suitcases on a flight from Thailand, in 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 British couple claiming to be tourists from Thailand were arrested with more than 33kg of cannabis in their suitcases at a Spanish airport.
The pair were discovered by suspicious police officers at Valencia airport after displaying a “nervous and evasive attitude” and are now behind bars on drug trafficking charges.
Experts told The Sun how cruel gangs are luring aspiring British Insta stars to transport drugs around the world.
Then last month, a six-year-old British boy was arrested in Mauritius on suspicion of smuggling part of a drug haul worth £1.6 million stuffed inside his briefcase.
The boy was picked up by customs officials along with his mother and five other Britons when they arrived on the tropical island.
Authorities called the use of a child in the audacious drug smuggling scheme “inhumane.”
