Family of drug mule Melissa Reid in the dark over potential release

AUTHORITIES are set to release Scots drug mule Melissa Reid from a Peruvian jail – but her family claim they are still in the dark on the move.

It’s been claimed Reid, from Lenzie, near Glasgow, was told on Friday that a court had agreed to her plea to be released from prison and expelled from the South American country.

Unless the decision is appealed by state prosecutors by Tuesday, Reid, 22, is likely to be back in Britain – as a free woman – by the middle of next month.

But last night her aunt, Bernadette Gormal, who runs a support group for Melissa on Facebook, said she was unaware of what was happening.

There have been a number of false dawns on the release bid for Reid. Strikes and court backlogs have been blamed for the hold-up.

Reacting to news Melissa was to be freed, Bernadette, who is the sister of Melissa’s dad Billy, said the release “was still unconfirmed”.

She added that she would “relax when she’s on the plane”.

Reid and Michaella McCollum, from Co Tyrone, the so-called Peru Two, were arrested in August 2013 for attempting to smuggle cocaine to Spain.

Reid has served about a third of her sentence – handed down in December of that year – of six years and eight months.

McCollum, 23, was freed last month after serving two years and three months in prison although she will have to remain in Peru for some time as part of her parole conditions. No such conditions have been placed on Reid’s release. However, she has been forced to pay £2,100 to kick-start the expulsion process.

A court spokesman: “Judge Ana Zapata Huertas has approved British national Melissa Reid’s application and agreed her expulsion from Peru to her country of origin.

“In the final court hearing she showed repentance for the crime she had committed, as well as her intention to reinsert herself into society so she would avoid reoffending.”

The spokesman said customs chiefs and the British Embassy in Lima would be informed of the ruling so preparations could be made for Reid’s return.

However, state prosecutors have three days to appeal the court ruling and have yet to announce their plans.

It means Reid is unlikely to know her fate for certain until the middle of the week.

Reid and McCollum were arrested at Lima’s Jorge Chavez Airport on August 6, 2013, with more than 11kg of cocaine in their suitcases.

They protested their innocence for weeks before this newspaper revealed their plans to plead guilty to trying to smuggle the drugs out of the country on an Air Europe flight to Majorca via Madrid.

However, the women, who flew to Peru from Ibiza where they had been working over the summer, continued to insist they were coerced into becoming drugs runners by an armed gang that kidnapped them.