Tbilisi judge rejects lawyer’s offer of plea agreement for release of pregnant Teesside teenager, now 19, at hearing
The British teenager Bella Culley is to be held in a Georgian prison for at least five more weeks as she awaits trial on drug-smuggling charges, a court in Tbilisi has ordered.
Culley, the great-granddaughter of a former Labour MP, was arrested on arrival at the city’s airport in May. Georgian prosecutors said she was carrying a large amount of illegal drugs in luggage she brought with her from Thailand.
During a short hearing on Thursday, she reportedly told the court in the Georgian capital: “I hope you understand my story through my eyes. I never thought something like this would happen to me.”
Her lawyer, Malkhaz Salakia, said there was no evidence she had any intention of breaking the law, adding: “There were people who forced my client to commit this unknowingly.”
