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Bella Culley, a pregnant teenager from Billingham, Teesside, who admitted to drug trafficking charges in Georgia, has returned home after being released from prison. Initially facing a potential 20-year sentence, a last-minute alteration to the terms of a plea deal resulted in her early release. Having spent over five months in custody at Georgia’s Rustavi Prison Number Five, Culley, now eight months pregnant, reunited with her mother upon leaving court in Tbilisi and later arriving at Luton Airport via an Easyjet flight.
Upon her arrival at the airport, Culley, accompanied by her well-wishers, was met by authorities and guided through a staff entrance. The teenager was taken into custody on May 10 after being apprehended at Tbilisi International Airport with a significant amount of marijuana and hashish in her luggage. Following a payment of £137,000 by her family to shorten her sentence to two years, Culley’s lawyer, Malkhaz Salakaia, revealed that prosecutors decided to release her given her youth and current condition.
Culley had previously confessed to smuggling drugs into Georgia after traveling from Thailand through Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. Allegedly coerced by criminals who subjected her to brutal torture, she found herself in a distressing situation. Having gone missing during her travels in Thailand, Georgian authorities launched a probe into her coercion allegations, which her lawyer addressed. Culley endured pre-trial detention in harsh conditions at Rustavi Prison Number Five before being relocated to a specialized “mother and baby” unit as her legal proceedings progressed
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