A pregnant British woman accused of smuggling heroin into Laos was sentenced to life in prison, the British Foreign Office said Wednesday.
Samantha Orobator, 20, was jailed last August at the airport in the Lao capital, Vientiane, and charged with carrying about half a kilogram of heroin. She is more than five months pregnant, and enters her third trimester on Saturday. The circumstances under which Orobator became pregnant in prison remain unclear. She told her mother she was not raped in prison and that the father is not a Lao prison official. Watch what’s known about Samantha Orobator » A newspaper run by the Lao government reported Orobator as saying she impregnated herself with the sperm of another prisoner being held in the same jail. Watch Jane Orobator describe learning about her daughter’s arrest »
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Jailed Briton could be transferred from Laos to UK
A spokeswoman for legal aid charity Reprieve spokeswoman said the charity did not know if the newspaper report was true. Watch the legal developments of Orobator’s case »
“We haven’t seen her to confirm this, but are keen that this issue — which is irrelevant to the case — does not delay or affect the trial,” Katherine O’Shea told CNN via e-mail. Orobator could be returned to the UK to serve her sentence. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell met Laotian Deputy Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith last month to discuss the case and sign a prisoner transfer agreement between the two countries.
