Egypt due to free Briton jailed over painkillers
A BRITISH woman jailed for taking illegal painkillers into Egypt is expected to be pardoned by the country’s president.
Laura Plummer, 33, is on an official list of names waiting to be signed by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, according to a source at the presidential office.
Once the decree is signed and sent to the country’s interior ministry, she can be released.
Miss Plummer, a shop worker from Hull, was sentenced to three years in jail on Boxing Day after landing at the Red Sea resort of Hurghada with 290 tramadol pills in her luggage.
She said she had taken them for her Egyptian boyfriend, Omar Saad, because he suffers from back pain after a car crash. The medication is illegal in Egypt.
She was detained in October when security searched her bag at the airport. Her jailing last month sparked a desperate legal battle by her family.
An appeal hearing had been due later this year. But a president’s office source yesterday confirmed her name was on the list waiting to be be signed by Mr el- Sisi, with her release expected within days. Her father Neville Plummer told the Daily Mail: ‘It’s more than a ray of hope now, things are looking positive.’
Miss Plummer has always maintained she did not know tramadol was banned in the country.