Woman jailed in Egypt ‘set to be pardoned’
A WOMAN from Yorkshire jailed in Egypt is on the verge of being freed following an act of mercy by the country’s President.
Laura Plummer, 33, from Hull, was sentenced to three years in prison for taking 290 Tramadol tablets into the country.
It is believed she will be saved from serving the rest of her sentence after being pardoned by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as part of Egypt’s Revolution Day celebrations.
Family members were travelling to Cairo ahead of Miss Plummer’s expected release from AlQanatar women’s prison. Sister Jayne Synclair told
newspaper: “We can’t believe it’s over. We’ve prayed for this day since she was arrested. We just want to get her home.”
Miss Plummer is reported to have told her family in an emotional phone call: “I never thought this day would come. I’d given up hope.”
The shop worker was arrested at the airport on October 9 last year when she flew into the Red Sea resort of Hurghada.
She was handed her jail sentence by judges on Boxing Day, nearly three months after she was found to be carrying the Tramadol tablets in her suitcase. The prescription painkiller is legal in the UK but banned in Egypt.
The court was told she was taking the tablets for her Egyptian partner Omar Caboo, who suffers from severe back pain, and had no idea what she was doing was wrong.
Hull East MP Karl Turner said he was “very optimistic” Miss Plummer would be released.
At a meeting earlier this month which he attended Miss Plummer’s father Neville had asked Minister for the Middle East Alistair Burt to make inquiries with counterparts about the possibility of a presidential pardon.
Mr Turner said: “The pardon was something, if I am being absolutely honest I thought was very optimistic, but it seems likely that it may be happening.”
He said Miss Plummer had been getting better treatment, as a result of efforts by the Foreign Office and the Consulate in Egypt, was sharing a cell with another British woman and has been getting regular meals.
The couple are believed to have met some four years ago at the luxury Hilton Sharks Bay in Sharm el Sheikh, when Miss Plummer was on holiday.
Since then, she has visited Mr Caboo three or four times a year.
It has been a regular practice for presidents in Egypt to mark national and religious occasions by pardoning prisoners.
Thursday marked the anniversary of the beginning of the Egyptian Revolution, a violent uprising which toppled former president Hosni Mubarak.
Last year 203 prisoners were released in March and more than 500 in June following presidential decrees. In 2015, the President pardoned 100 prisoners, including Al Jazeera journalists Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, who were accused of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.
A spokesman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said: “We continue to provide assistance to Laura and her family, and our embassy remains in regular contact with the Egyptian authorities.”