Teen drug mule suspect Bella Culley claims a British gang in Thailand threatened to kill her family and decapitate her if she did not smuggle 24lb of cannabis.
The pregnant 18-year-old said she was burned with an iron and desperately texted her family saying: ‘HELP ME’.
She also stopped a policeman in Bangkok, saying she was being coerced into taking the narcotics to Georgia.
But the officers simply returned her to the gang and by the time her parents saw her message it was too late.
Bella is in Women’s Penitentiary No 5 after being caught with the drugs as she entered Tbilisi Airport in the Georgian capital on May 10.
She was yesterday denied bail and faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of drug smuggling at her trial next week.
Her lawyer Malkhaz Salakaia, known as a skilful negotiator who has investigated the attempted assassination of a former Georgian President, said the British backpacker ‘is not of the age to carefully consider what could have happened to her.’
Speaking after her hearing in Tbilisi City Court, he told the Mail she was targeted by a British gang in Bangkok.
‘They told her: we know the addresses of your parents, we know where your 16-year-old brother is,’ he said.
‘They made her watch a video of a man being decapitated and told her: if you don’t do as told, this is what is going to happen to you and your family.
‘She felt queasy and almost fainted but they still forced her to watch it.’
Mr Salakaia said his client’s right arm still bears ‘a mark from this coercion’.
He said: ‘She was, so to say, branded – a hot iron was pressed on her arm. She was forced to do this – there was both psychological and physical pressure, the trace of which is still visible.
‘As to what connection did she have with this group – She knew several of them – they are British. At first, she knew one, and then through him met the others. However, we have grounds to assume that this group also had local accomplices, including in Thailand.’
Bella’s father Niel Culley, 49, and aunt Kerrie Culley, 51, were seen inside as well as her grandfather, while her mother appeared via videolink. They offered £13,500 to grant her bail but it was denied.
It has now emerged Bella tried to get a message to them during her ordeal.
Her lawyer said: ‘There is also an episode indicated in the case that Bella sent an SMS to her family asking for help, saying: “HELP ME”, but by the time the family reacted it was too late
‘The instruction, or rather, a threat, she was given consisted of the following: you will take this luggage and carry it from point A to point B, to this or that country, or we will kill you. There is no talk of any potential reward or deal – Bella was simply forced to do this.
‘The speculation that one of them is the father of Bella’s child does not correspond to the truth – I categorically deny this; there is no connection. I cannot say whether the father of the child knows about Bella’s situation.’
He also accused the Thai police of being involved with the gang. Mr Salakaia said: ‘There was a very alarming episode while she was still in Bangkok.
‘Bella seized a moment to go to some policemen – there were three of them, standing on the street – She tells them: I have a problem, this is happening, there is pressure on me, help me.
‘They spoke with her for 20 minutes and then returned her exactly to the same people she had run away from.
‘This allows the simplest conclusion – that this group, so to say, had things arranged with the local police.’
Detailing how she got to Tbilisi, he said she was simply told she was going there and loaded into a vehicle where she was met by a handler who gave her a passport and checked the bag in.
Bella apparently told passport control it was not her bag but ‘they paid no attention’.
Mr Salakaia said that when she got to Tbilisi officers noticed the vacuum-sealed drugs inside.
She again informed them it was not her bag and had been told to meet someone with it and ‘her mission would be complete’.
He said his client made a partial admission to Georgian police that she was ‘forced’ to carry the narcotics ‘due to pressure exerted on her’.
‘It was not the case that she brought it with prior intent to later pass it to a prearranged, known person.
‘She was told she would be met, that her photograph had already been sent and the addressee would receive the cargo.’
He insisted the teen Brit did not buy the drugs and that her luggage had been checked in by someone else – but was registered to her.
Mr Salakaia was hopeful that these mitigating circumstances would see Bella handed a fine and be deported. He said: ‘This is a realistic scenario.’
The trial is listed to begin on Thursday July 10.
