TWO WOMEN ARRESTED TRYING TO SMUGGLE $1.5 MILLION WORTH OF COCAINE OUT OF PERU

MICHAELLA MCCOLLUM

Two women arrested on suspicion of trying to smuggle cocaine worth $1.5m out of Peru were formally charged with drug trafficking and refused bail on Wednesday.
Appearing before a judge for the first time since their arrest, Michaella McCollum and Melissa Reid were told they might have to wait anything up to three years for a trial hearing.

The pair, both 20, face a possible prison sentence of eight to 15 years, prosecutors in Lima have said.

The judge, Dilo Huaman, opened the case accepting the charges of drug trafficking against the British women and remanded them in custody after refusing a bail application.

The judge questioned the pair – who claim they had been threatened at gunpoint and coerced into carrying the drugs – why they didn't ask someone for help as they carried the cocaine through the airport.

"They admit knowing about the drugs but did not inform an authority," he said.
The women looked drawn and somber as they listened through a translator during the hour-long public hearing.

Reid, from Glasgow, and McCollum, from Dungannon, Co Tyrone, were arrested at Lima airport two weeks ago after 11kg of cocaine was found in their luggage inside food packages.

The pair met while spending the summer working in bars on Ibiza, and claimed they had been forced to travel to Peru to become drug mules by an armed gang on the island.
Neither Reid's father, William, nor McCollum's brother, Keith, who are both in Peru to support the women, were present in court.

The administrative hearing was the first of its kind to be held in public. Such preliminary proceedings have always been held in private.

Peruvian officials would not say if the procedural change was due to the unprecedented media attention surrounding the British women.

On Tuesday amid chaotic scenes and a heavy press presence, the women were taken handcuffed from the police station where they had been held since their arrest to a public prosecutor's office and then to the district court where they were jostled through a waiting media scrum.

The pair looked downcast as they were led away with their wrists handcuffed to each other as the court session ended.

Speaking after the hearing, Peter Madden, a lawyer helping McCollum's defence, said the women had tried to explain the judge that they "thought they were being watched and if they co-operated nothing would happen."

He added that the lengthy wait to get a trial encouraged innocent suspects to plead guilty to reduce their prison time.

He described the conditions in the women's holding cell as a "breach of human rights."
The Peruvian authorities are expected to decide which jail the women will be sent to in the next 24 hours.