THE two girls convicted of drug smuggling in Peru are celebrating after officials in the UK agreed to allow them to transfer to a prison in Britain.
Melissa Reid and Michaella McCollum's hopes of a swift return to the UK were bolstered after British embassy officials in Lima visited them in jail to tell them their transfer request had been accepted.
Peruvian authorities must now sanction the move before they are transferred to their home country to serve out the rest of their six year and eight month prison sentences.
A Lima source said last night he expected the process to take around six months but they could be on a plane back to Britain in three months if there were no bureaucratic 'hold-ups'.
State prosecutors, a judge and two government ministries in Peru will now be asked to rubber-stamp the transfer.
Reid, 20, from Lenzie, and McCollum, 21, from Dungannon, Co Tyrone, were caught with the haul at Lima airport on August 6 last year. They were working on the Spanish party island of Ibiza when they claimed Colombian drug lords, who kidnapped them at gunpoint, forced them to board a flight with 24lb of cocaine in food packets hidden inside their luggage. They had faced the prospect of a maximum 15-year prison term but struck a behind-closed-doors plea bargain to secure a shorter sentence.
The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) said it has approved a repatriation application it received from Lima earlier this year.
Prison chiefs are now waiting for the Peruvian authorities to agree on the terms of the transfer before it can take place.
A SPS spokeswoman said: "We have provisionally given consent to the Peruvian authorities for the application."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article