A British former flight attendant who is alleged to have smuggled £1.2 million of cannabis into Sri Lanka broke down in tears today as she appeared in court.
Charlotte May Lee, 21, from Coulsdon, south London, was arrested in Colombo after police claimed they had discovered 46kg of “kush”, a super-strength synthetic strain of cannabis, in her luggage.
She had just arrived in the city on a flight from Bangkok, Thailand, and was arrested immediately and taken into custody on May 11.
Footage showed her in a white dress with her arms behind her back being escorted into a prison van outside a court building.
She was held in a cell at the back of the court and then led to the witness box, but was unable to fully follow proceedings as they were in the main language of Sri Lanka, Sinhalese.
Police brought the pile of drugs into the courtroom as they described how their investigation was continuing.
Lee is facing up to 25 years in a Sri Lankan jail, but she insisted that she had been set up.
Speaking from behind bars from the woman’s ward of the prison last week, Lee said she was not eating because the food was too spicy. She claimed she was being held in a crowded cell for 22 hours a day and was only let out to eat and briefly stretch her legs.
According to Lee’s friends, she has been trying to post updates of her plight on Snapchat.
She said she had “no idea” there were drugs in her luggage when she set off for Sri Lanka.
“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. They must have planted it then.”
“I know who did it,” she told the MailOnline.
Lee had been working on a “booze cruise” in Thailand, but her 30-day visa was about to run out, so she decided to take a trip to nearby Sri Lanka while she waited for her Thai visa to be renewed.
“I thought while I was waiting for the visa that I’d come to Sri Lanka. They [the people she believed planted the drugs] were supposed to meet me here. But now I’m here — stuck in this jail,” she said.
After her arrest, Lee was initially held at the Police Narcotics Bureau for seven days, where she slept on a sofa with bed bugs and was watched by a security guard.
“I am trying my best to stay positive because what else can you do?
“But it is hard. 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.
She added: “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.”
The Foreign Office in the UK has confirmed that it was supporting a British woman who had been arrested in Sri Lanka and was in contact with her family, as well as local authorities.
Lee added: “Some people are nice, some people are not so nice. You can’t trust many people. . . I was being held in the narcotics unit until Sunday and now I will be here until my next court case.
“They don’t care about you. I came in with nothing and have nothing but luckily other people have stuff here they can share with me.”
Lee is facing two charges, one of possessing illegal drugs and another of importing illegal drugs into Sri Lanka.
Officials from the Customs Narcotics Control Unit in the airport said it is the largest amount of kush ever to be detected since the international hub opened.
