Concern was raised worldwide when a British student vanished in Thailand.
She appears to have been located, albeit not under the ideal circumstances. She was arrested, but not in Thailand; rather, it was in a foreign nation.
Read on to find out more.
Bella Culley, 18, was trekking along a well-traveled path in Asia while on vacation. On April 28, she left for the Philippines and started recording her journey for social media.
Before reaching Thailand on May 3, she made her way across several Philippine islands. The last time she spoke to her family, they heard a radio silence from her end and sounded the alert.
She was in Georgia, over 4,000 miles from where her family believed she was, when they last heard from her. Georgia is located in the South Caucasus region of Eastern Europe.
Culley was arrested and charged with unlawfully importing, purchasing, and having substantial amounts of drugs, including marijuana, in Georgia. The teenager is now asserting that she is expecting a child.
How she traveled from Thailand to Georgia is unclear.
Ia Todua has been designated by the state to act as Culley’s attorney in these court cases. Todua acknowledged that she remained silent throughout the hearing and was transferred to a same-sex pre-trial prison center in Rustavi, Georgia. The city is close to Tbilisi, the country’s capital.
She landed in Georgia on Saturday, May 10th, according to Culley’s attorney. Until last week’s hearing, she was held in a temporary detention facility.
According to Todua, “I think she is a child because she was so clenched.” She was afraid to speak when the main points of the charge were outlined to her.
“She chose to remain silent when we asked her to testify at that precise moment.”
The charges against Culley included “the illegal importation of the drug into Georgia, the illegal purchase and possession of a particularly large amount of narcotics, and the illegal purchase and possession of the narcotic drug marijuana.”
At the Tbilisi International Airport, the drugs were found in the British teen’s suitcase.
“Law enforcement officers, as a result of defendant’s luggage inspection at Tbilisi International Airport, seized a particularly large amount of the narcotic drug marijuana, up to 12 kilograms, and 2.068 kilograms of the narcotic drug hashish as evidence,” the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs said in a statement.
In a statement, a representative for the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) acknowledged their involvement. “We are in contact with the local authorities and are providing support to the family of a British woman who is detained in Georgia,” they stated.
If proven guilty, Georgian police say the boy may spend up to 20 years behind bars.
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