Peru Two's Michaella McCollum opens up on terrifying prison conditions

Extra.ie​

2 days ago

Michaella McCollum has spoken about her experience in a Peruvian prison, after two girls were arrested abroad for drug trafficking.
Ms McCollum, from Dungannon in Co Tyrone, was arrested alongside Scotswoman Melissa Reid after the pair, who became known as 'The Peru Two,' were caught with 12kg of cocaine. They both served just over two years in prison, with Ms Reid being expelled to Scotland and Ms McCollum returning to Ireland two months later.
Following the arrests of two girls abroad in unrelated cases for trying to smuggle cannabis and kush, a synthetic drug which can be more powerful than fentanyl, Ms McCollum has spoken about her experience in the Peru prison, including eating maggot-filled paella and the extreme conditions she faced. Michaella McCollum has spoken about her experience in a Peruvian prison, after two girls were arrested for drug trafficking. Pic: Ken McKay/ITV/REX
'I remember how I'd lay all the rice out, to see which grains I could eat and which were maggots,' Ms McCollum told the Daily Mail. 'Back home, it was reported that I'd gone on hunger strike, but I hadn't.'
She also spoke about how her mother would have to wait hours in the Peruvian heat with bags of food for her daughter, with her adding that she would have to flick cockroaches away while eating chicken — something that she grew accustomed to during her time behind bars, but is horrified by now.
'She'd bring a whole chicken, which I'd eat with my fingers, and there would be cockroaches climbing up onto the table and I'd just flick them away. I mean, they didn't even bother me, by then,' she said. 'You become so used to it. And I suppose there is a level of guilt and shame that you feel it's acceptable, even though it isn't.' Ms McCollum and Melissa Reid were arrested and served two years in Peruvian prison for smuggling 26kg of cocaine. Pic: REX
Speaking on Charlotte Lee May, 21, who faces 20 years in Sri Lankan prison for smuggling 46kg of 'kush,' as well as Bella May Culley, 18, who ellegedly tried to smuggle 14kg of cannabis to Georgia, Ms McCollum saw the two girls as victims — particularly in Ms Culley's case after she told the court in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi that she was pregnant.
'The [Bella Culley] situation was almost exactly the same,' she said. 'Her mum had reported her missing, then it emerged that she'd been arrested. There were such parallels with my case – except it was just in a different country. I couldn't help but feel bad for them. Whatever they have done, it's so young to be caught up in something like this, and I know what they are going to go through. And their families. It's the worst thing anybody can have to face.
'As a mum, I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to give birth in that sort of place, and to potentially have the child taken from you and put into care,' she added about the case of Ms Culley. 'That adds a whole new, terrifying, dimension. It's just incredibly sad.'
Ms McCollum and Ms Reid, who had never met prior to their arrest, say that they were coerced into smuggling the cocaine while working in Ibiza, but pleaded guilty to drug trafficking. They were sentenced to six years and eight months in prison but were both released after serving just shy of three years.
Ms Culley and Ms Lee both face 20 years in prison for their alleged role in drug trafficking, with Ms McCollum adding that she believes they were also coerced into doing so.
'I don't know the circumstances in detail here, but I do know that of all the women I came across who had been involved in drug smuggling, only about 10% were doing it as a business, who knew the risks and accepted them,' she said.
'The vast majority were the victims of some sort of coercion, usually by men. Prisons all over the world are full of women who have been caught up in something like this. And the men at the top rarely get caught. The men who pulled all the strings in my case were never held to account.'