A British woman jailed in Egypt for bringing banned painkillers into the country will remain behind bars after an anticipated presidential pardon failed to materialise.
A lawyer for Laura Plummer, 33, told her family that her name had appeared on an official list of presidential pardons and that she could be expected to be freed within days.
Yesterday, however, the British embassy in Cairo informed them that there had been a “mistake” and that Ms Plummer would remain in jail. She faces another six months in custody until an appeal can be heard.
Ms Plummer’s mother, Roberta, told The Sun that the family felt that they had been “double-crossed”.
She and her elder daughter, Jane, visited Ms Plummer in Cairo’s notorious Qanater prison on Sunday, when she was still expecting to be released.
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Ms Plummer was arrested in November at Hurghada international airport when she was found to be carrying 290 tablets of Tramadol, an opioid painkiller that is banned in Egypt.
She insisted that she did not know the drug was illegal and that she had brought them for her Egyptian partner, Omar Saad, 33, who suffers from a bad back. She was sentenced to three years in jail on Boxing Day after being convicted on charges relating to drugs possession.
Ms Plummer was originally jailed near Hurghada but was later transferred to Qanater, where she described sleeping on the floor of a filthy cell with more than 60 other women. Last week the family were told that she had been pardoned by President Sisi as part of a series of amnesties that were announced to mark the anniversary of Egypt’s 2011 revolution.
Mohamed Osman, Ms Plummer’s lawyer, told The Times on Sunday that he and the prison authorities had yet to receive official confirmation of the pardon despite being told that her name was on the list.