A former top cop has told the Mirror that suspected British teen drug smuggler Bella May Culley should tell police everything she knows while being held in Georgia
Suspected British drug smuggler Bella May Culley should tell police in Georgia everything she knows, an ex-top cop in the country says. The 18-year-old vanished in Thailand before turning up in the ex-Soviet state where she faces life behind bars after allegedly importing cannabis.
Now, an expert – who used to head Georgia’s national bureau for combating drug trafficking – has offered his view on the teenager’s case. Retired police General Jemal Janashia told the Mirror: “I feel sorry for this woman because she was clearly used and manipulated. She’s 18, she’s a foreigner, pregnant. All of this indicates that she was chosen deliberately, chosen carefully, she was studied. Whoever chose her, they knew what they were doing.”
Bella – who said she’s pregnant – was arrested at Tbilisi International Airport on May 11. She is accused of carrying about 12kg of cannabis and around 2kg of hashish into Georgia. If found guilty, the teenager, from Billingham on Teesside, faces a lengthy prison spell — which could be life in the worst-case scenario.
Janashia, now a Professor at the Faculty of Law and International Relations, Georgian Technical University, added: “First of all, I would advise her to cooperate, together with the lawyer, with the investigation, indicate who were the youths that she was in touch with in Thailand. And also indicate whether there was a contact person in Georgia as well.
“Then a plea bargain should be reached, her profile does not strike me as one of a drug trafficker, she might be a user but I suppose we will find out soon enough. But it does not look like she has any previous experience in drug trafficking. The court, first of all will clarify and find out whether she has sold drugs before or trafficked them before, what kind of profile she has. And if it’s the first time, it’s mitigating circumstances.”
Asked whether his message to Bella was to tell the police everything she knows, he replied: “Of course.” From 1998 until 2006 the academic was also Assistant to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Georgia on issues related to drug addiction and drug trafficking, as well as international crime.
Speaking in his ninth floor office which looks out over Tbilisi, he added: “Unlikely as it might be, it’s also possible that she was just approached and told: you’ll take this to Georgia, it’s light. And then let her inspect it without drugs in and after switch it. And she could have been told we will give you $2,000-$3,000. So there is a chance that she didn’t even know what was in there.”
Expanding on why he suspected Georgia might not have been the final destination, he explained that it sounded too unlikely for a British girl to choose it. “She is from Europe so she could have gone to Europe and brought this with her and then either used it herself or spread it in her circle,” he said. “On the other side, if she does have a contact in Georgia then it could be that Georgia was the final destination because it would not be too hard to turn this into cash.”
In Georgia, cannabis is legal to use but it is against the law to sell it. The expert also expressed concern over the way Bella’s arrest was handled.
He explained: “I would like to express my worry that the operation [to arrest Bella] was stopped too early before it could reach its logical conclusion before we could find out who she was in contact with, who she was going to, and so on. Maybe it’s the first attempt. It’s a test run from Thailand to check whether it [the route] would work but we won’t know because it was stopped.
“Had the operation been done properly, we would have found out what the final destination was. I have suspicion that the final destination is likely to be Europe rather than Georgia.”
On Tuesday, Bella told a court she was pregnant. Bella’s dad, Niel [cor] has travelled to Georgia. Back in the UK, her granddad has previously said Bella had told him she was travelling to the Philippines to see a lad.