JAILED drug mule Melissa Reid is still waiting on the go-ahead for her proposed transfer back to Scotland, with reports that it could still be overturned by Peru's president.
Reid, who is from Lenzie near Glasgow, was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison after smuggling cocaine worth £1.5million through Lima airport in 2013..
The 22-year-old was jailed alongside Michaella McCollum, 21, in a high-profile case which saw the friends nicknamed the 'Peru Two'.
The Scottish Prison Service have agreed for Reid being transferred to a Scottish prison last August, however the process has been hit by numerous delays.
A Sunday publication has reported that court insiders say Peru's president, Ollanta Humala, has the final word on the transfer and could still deny her request.
A source in the Peruvian justice system reportedly said: "The final stage of the transfer after the court approves it is that President Humala signs it off.
"The president’s signature is entirely at his own discretion. He is under no obligation to sign off the transfer.
"Reid’s return to the UK is not a formality and shouldn’t be treated as such.
"Drugs are a controversial issue in Peru and Humala vowed to fight against them when he was elected."
Yesterday, a spokesman for the Scottish Prison Service said: “We cannot comment on individual cases.”
Magaly Cigarrostegui, from the president’s office, reportedly said: "If the judicial authorities send it here, we’ll take a look at it.
"But we can’t comment now about something that has yet to happen."
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 here