A young British ex-flight attendant accused of smuggling £1.2 million worth of high-strength cannabis into Sri Lanka has appeared in court.
Charlotte May Lee, 21, from Coulsdon, south London, was arrested in Colombo after police found 46 kg of ‘Kush’ – a synthetic type of cannabis – in her suitcase.
She’d just arrived in the Sri Lankan capital on a flight from Bangkok, Thailand. She was arrested at Bandaranaike Airport and taken into custody on Monday, the 11th of May.
Today, Charlotte was filmed being escorted to a prison van by the police outside the court building in Colombo.
She was visibly upset when she appeared in court.
The former TUI flight attendant was kept in a cell at the back of the room and then brought to the witness box for a short time. However, she found it difficult to understand what was happening because the proceedings were in Sinhalese, the main language of Sri Lanka.
Police also brought the nearly 50kg haul of cannabis she was caught with into court as their investigation into the drug seizure continues.
Charlotte is due to appear in court again in a fortnight.
She could face up to 25 years in a Sri Lankan prison, but she maintains she’s been framed.
Speaking to MailOnline from the women’s ward of a well-known prison last week, Miss Lee said she had ‘no idea’ that there were drugs in her luggage when she travelled to Sri Lanka.
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.
‘They must have planted it then.’
And she added: ‘I know who did it.’
Miss Lee told us she had been working temporarily 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.
She decided to go to the country because it was nearby, only a three-hour flight away and she had never visited there before.
‘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.’
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