British ‘Drug Mule’ Complains About Food In Sri Lankan Prison

(METRO): A former flight attendant has complained about life in a Sri Lankan prison where she is being held on drugs charges.

Charlotte May Lee, 21, is accused of smuggling £1.2 million in Kush – a synthetic form of cannabis – into the country last week.

She is now being held in a small women’s wing in Negombo Prison, a city north of the capital, Colombo, where she has complained about her current living conditions.

She said: ‘I feel as though I have no human rights here. There are no beds, no blankets. And where you sleep is like a long corridor with lots of other women.

‘I am sleeping on a concrete floor – literally. All I have is my jumper as a pillow.

‘There is a ceiling fan but it doesn’t really work and there’s a TV but that also barely works. I only have this one pair of clothes, nothing else to change into and I’m not being allowed my medication for ADHD.’

Charlotte added that inmates are given sleeping tablets and she is less than impressed with the washing facilities.

‘The shower is not really a shower, it’s just a bucket that you pour over yourself, but they don’t give you anything for that. They put you in an alleyway with a bunch of other women, that’s it.’

She is also unhappy with the amount of recreation and the types of food that she has been given.

She said: ‘You are only allowed two or three hours outside in the sun a day, occasionally longer if there are a lot of women in court that day.

‘I’ve not eaten in two days because the food is just too spicy for me. I have told my lawyers – I have three of them – that I need different food. They said they would sort that but they still haven’t. I don’t know why.’

Charlotte has also spoken about feeling isolated because there are no other British people in the jail.

‘All the other British people being held here are men, so I don’t get to see them.

‘There is no communication. You are told nothing. I couldn’t arrange an e-visit with my family or even write a letter.’

Charlotte was arrested when she arrived at the country’s main airport in Sri Lanka.

She claims that she has no idea how the drugs got into her bag.

She said: ‘I had never seen them before. I didn’t expect it all when they pulled me over at the airport. I thought it was going to be filled with all my stuff.

‘I had been in Bangkok the night before and had already packed my clothes because my flight was really early. So I left my bags in the hotel room and headed for the night out. As they were already packed I didn’t check them again in the morning.’

Despite not knowing how the Kush got there, she thinks she knows who planted them on her.

She said: ‘They were supposed to meet me here, but now I’m here, stuck in this jail.’

Her arrest came within 24 hours of the detention of Bella may Culley in Georgia who is alleged to have tried to smuggle 14kg of cannabis.

Both flew from the same airport in Thailand after meeting an unknown man, and both are now facing long prison sentences if they’re found guilty of acting as drugs mules for organised crime gangs.