A Turkish court has sentenced two French women to 10 years in prison for attempting to smuggle nearly 25 kilograms of cannabis into the country from Thailand, an Agence France-Presse journalist in court reported.
The pair was arrested on February 28 during a stopover at İstanbul Airport while carrying two suitcases containing about 12 kilos of cannabis each.
The women, Ibtissem B., 22, and Mariam N., 23, were also each ordered to pay a fine of 100,000 Turkish lira (around 1,990 euros).
The judge sentenced them on the charge of “drug transport rather than drug trafficking, which would have exposed them to a heavier sentence,” Mariam’s lawyer, Umut Alikaşifoğlu, said.
“The objective now is to obtain their transfer to a prison in France,” he added.
Under Turkish law cannabis trafficking is punishable by up to 20 years in prison, while cocaine trafficking carries a minimum sentence of 30 years, the lawyer said.
“Let us hope that the French and Turkish authorities quickly reach an agreement on their transfer,” Ibtissem’s French lawyer, Carole-Olivia Montenot, said.
The two women have been held for 10 months in Marmara Prison, Turkey’s largest detention facility. They have always claimed that they had no knowledge of what they were carrying.
© Agence France-Presse