THE parents of pregnant drug mule teenager Bella Culley are to appeal for a presidential pardon to allow her to leave a grim ex-Soviet jail before she has her baby.
Bella, 19, was stunned today when a judge in Georgia jailed her for two years after her family managed to raise £140,000 of a huge £215,000 fine.
She now faces having her baby in the hospital before being forced to return to the grim No5 Women’s Penitentiary near capital Tbilisi.
But her lawyer Malkhaz Salakaia revealed today that the family will now beg for a pardon from Georgian president Mikheil Kavelashvili – a former Manchester City footballer.
The last gasp appeal for mercy will be in light of her pregnancy and her claims that she was forced to carry £200,000 of cannabis from Thailand by a brutal drug gang.
Mr Salakaia said: “Once the plea bargain is finalised, we will petition for a presidential pardon on her behalf, citing her pregnancy and other mitigating factors.
“If the pardon is granted, she will leave the country immediately.
“There is also the possibility of early release on parole, though that decision falls entirely within the authority of the penitentiary system.”
Mr Salakaia said if the president refuses the family’s plea, Bella will give birth in a hospital and then return to custody, where she will raise her child.
He added: “She will be provided with a separate, specially equipped room that meets all necessary standards.
“Under Georgian lawif she had already been a mother at the time of her arrest, she would not have been incarcerated until her child reached the age of one—but that was not the case here.”
Ex-striker president Kavelashvili, 53, joined Man City in 1995 and scored just three goals in 28 games.
He was mocked for lacking higher education by protesters who waved their own university diplomas and kicked footballs on the day of his election.
Kavelashvili – who scored just one Premier League goal for City – is a member of the ruling Georgian Dream Party, which is increasingly authoritarian and pro-Russian.
He assumed the presidency after fiercely disputed parliamentary elections last year that critics say were orchestrated by Vladimir Putin.
Sources said Bella’s plea for mercy is unlikely to succeed.
Bella’s two-year sentence will be reduced by six months for time already served.
Her mum Lyanne Kennedy is making plans to move to Georgia to help bring up the child, she revealed outside court today.
Bella – who is expected to have her baby before Christmas – appeared stunned when the two-year sentence was announced in a Tbilisi court today.
Her family were desperately trying to clarify arrangements for the birth amid suggestions that she may be granted a period of house arrest as she comes close to term.
Lyanne, 44. said she did not want the baby to spend any time in prison and would be willing to move to Georgia.
She said after the hearing: “We want to know more about house arrest – I would have to come to Georgia to help.”
The Teesside teenager’s parents were given just three weeks to find £215,000 to secure her freedom at the start of this month but have no property.
Lyanne from Billingham, Teesside and oil rig technician dad father Niel Culley, 49, came agonisingly close to the total.
But after Niel hands over £140,000, a two-year sentence will be activated, with less time off for the time already spent in custody.
On pleading guilty, Bella, 19, asked her lawyer Malkhaz Salakaia: “Will I be able to take the baby with me if I go back to jail?”
Mr SalakaiaGelashvili responded: “Nobody is going to take the baby away from you.”
Bella fell pregnant by a British man before falling in with Thai drug gang which she claims forced her into drug trafficking on a two-leg flight from Bangkok to Tbilisi in May.
The teenager did not even know Georgia was a country when she was arrested touching down in the capital, Tbilisi, in May.
She has insisted a British gang threatened to kill her family if she didn’t do as they told her before being found with £200,000 worth of cannabis in her luggage.
Bella also claimed to have been burned with a hot iron and shown beheading videos by the gang before the mule run.
Prosecutor Vakhtang Tsalugelashvili told Tbilisi City Court: “The plea bargain has been reached, our conditions have been met – two years of imprisonment and fine of 500 000 Georian Lari.”
Mr Salakaia, defending, said: “I can confirm. All relevant parties have been informed as well. We would like to ask the judge to schedule one final hearing to pass the final verdict.
“She pleaded guilty, fully cooperated with the investigationand the plea bargain has just been reached. So we would like to ask the judge to release her on bail, given her advanced pregnancy.”
But Judge Giorgi Gelashvili said: “There are no legal grounds for changing her conditions I am afraid” after a doctor ruled her conditions are “satisfactory”.
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Bella waved to her mother as she was led off. Lawyers confirmed afterwards that had the family paid the full amount the teenager could have been freed immediately.
She flew to Tbilisi – thinking that was the name of a country – not knowing she had 31lbs of illegal cargo hidden in her bags.
Inside the dark world of Brit ‘drug mules’
A SLEW of drug mule arrests involving Brits have emerged in the last few months.
In April and May, two Brit women were arrested abroad for alleged drug smuggling.
Bella was the first after she allegedly tried to smuggle a suitcase of weed into Georgia.
Meanwhile, former air stewardess Charlotte May Lee was also caught allegedly trying to smuggle drugs worth £1.2million into Sri Lanka.
Her two suitcases were said to have been stuffed with 46kg of a synthetic cannabis strain known as kush — which is 25 times more potent than opioid fentanyl.
If found guilty, South Londoner Charlotte could face a 25-year sentence.
A young mum was detained in Germany for allegedly smuggling cannabis in her bags on a flight from Thailand – in yet another shocking case.
Glamorous Cameron Bradford, 21, from Knebworth, Herts, was detained at Munich Airport on April 21 as she tried to collect her luggage.
It comes as a Brit couple claiming to be tourists from Thailand have been busted with more than 33kg of cannabis in their suitcases at a Spanish airport.
The pair were picked out by suspicious cops at Valencia Airport after displaying a “nervous and evasive attitude” and are now behind bars on drug trafficking charges.
Experts told The Sun how wannabe Brit Insta stars are being lured by cruel gangs into carting drugs across the world.
Then last month, a six-year-old British boy was arrested in Mauritius suspected of smuggling part of a £1.6million dope haul stuffed inside his wheelie case.
The lad was picked up by customs officials along with his mum and five other Brits as they arrived on the tropical island.
Authorities branded the use of a child in the audacious drug smuggling plot as “inhumane”.