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26/09/2013
Peru Drugs Accused Have Guilty Pleas Rejected
Prosecutors in Peru have refused to accept the guilty pleas of two women caught trying to smuggle drugs out of the country.
On Tuesday, Michaella McCollum, 20, from Dungannon in Co Tyrone, and Melissa Reid, also 20 and from Lenzie in Scotland, admitted to smuggling drugs.
It is thought the women entered the plea in order to have their sentences reduced, however prosecutor Juan Rosas told news agency AFP that they need to provide more information.
He added that he would ask for another hearing in order to allow them to make a more detailed confession.
The women currently face up to 15 years in prison, but hope their admission of guilt could reduce the sentences to six years and eight months.
Mr Rosas stated that they now need to explain why they initially argued they had been coerced by a gang of armed men.
He continued to say their first version of events were "unbelievable" and that it had "not yet been examined".
A spokesman for the prosecutors' office in Callao, where Tuesday's plea hearing took place, said: "The two drug mules' guilty pleas have not been fully accepted, as far as the prosecutor is concerned, until they give more details.
"They will be asked to give another statement before the judge explaining where the drugs came from, who supplied them and why they said they had been forced to carry them by an armed gang."
A date for the new hearing is yet to be set.
McCollum and Reid were stopped at Lima airport in August as they prepared to board a flight to Spain. When they were searched, cocaine, said to be worth £1.5m, was found hidden in food packages in their luggage.
It is understood the women told the Peruvian authorities they were working in Ibiza and did not meet before they were both kidnapped at gunpoint and forced to travel to Majorca. They claimed they were then sent to Peru and forced to carry the drugs in their luggage.
At a closed hearing in Lima on Tuesday, they entered guilty please and were told they would be sentenced on 1 October.
(JP/CD)
On Tuesday, Michaella McCollum, 20, from Dungannon in Co Tyrone, and Melissa Reid, also 20 and from Lenzie in Scotland, admitted to smuggling drugs.
It is thought the women entered the plea in order to have their sentences reduced, however prosecutor Juan Rosas told news agency AFP that they need to provide more information.
He added that he would ask for another hearing in order to allow them to make a more detailed confession.
The women currently face up to 15 years in prison, but hope their admission of guilt could reduce the sentences to six years and eight months.
Mr Rosas stated that they now need to explain why they initially argued they had been coerced by a gang of armed men.
He continued to say their first version of events were "unbelievable" and that it had "not yet been examined".
A spokesman for the prosecutors' office in Callao, where Tuesday's plea hearing took place, said: "The two drug mules' guilty pleas have not been fully accepted, as far as the prosecutor is concerned, until they give more details.
"They will be asked to give another statement before the judge explaining where the drugs came from, who supplied them and why they said they had been forced to carry them by an armed gang."
A date for the new hearing is yet to be set.
McCollum and Reid were stopped at Lima airport in August as they prepared to board a flight to Spain. When they were searched, cocaine, said to be worth £1.5m, was found hidden in food packages in their luggage.
It is understood the women told the Peruvian authorities they were working in Ibiza and did not meet before they were both kidnapped at gunpoint and forced to travel to Majorca. They claimed they were then sent to Peru and forced to carry the drugs in their luggage.
At a closed hearing in Lima on Tuesday, they entered guilty please and were told they would be sentenced on 1 October.
(JP/CD)
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