British woman jailed for carrying pain pills
A BRITISH holidaymaker who has spent almost a month in jail for carrying 290 painkillers into Egypt to help ease her husband’s sore back made an honest mistake, her family have said.
Laura Plummer, 33, has been held ever since flying out to the strict Arab country for a two-week break with her husband, Omar.
She had put 29 packets of Tramadol, each containing 10 tablets, inside her suitcase to give to Omar, also 33, who suffers from bad back pain following a car crash.
However, Ms Plummer – who is currently being held in a tiny cell with 25 other women, including prostitutes, drug dealers and murderers – could be facing up to 25 years in prison, and one lawyer during her last court appearance mentioned the death penalty.
The prescription-only painkillers are worth only 8p each. However, the drug has been placed on a list of banned substances in Egypt since 2015, after it replaced heroin and cannabis as the recreational drug of choice.
Her youngest sister, Rachel Plummer, 31, said: “Tramadol to Laura is just a painkiller – nothing more. She’s now living in a hell hole for a few packs of painkillers. When we last saw her in court Laura was unrecognisable – her hair had fallen out with stress and she was blank behind the eyes.”
The family also say they have been conned out of £10,000 by impostors pretending to be lawyers.
Ms Plummer will appear in court on Thursday with a new lawyer.