Pregnant Bella Culley ‘toasts bread over a candle flame’ in Georgian prison

A British teenager – eight months pregnant and accused of drug smuggling – awaits her sentencing in prison in Georgia, in the South Caucasus. A £137,000 payment by her family will reduce her sentence, but what are the days like for Bella Collie, imprisoned 2,600 miles (4,180 kilometers) from her home?

Speaking exclusively to the BBC, Bella Cooley’s mother revealed that her daughter, who is now 35 weeks pregnant, has been transferred to the “mother and child” unit in the prison.

It represents a big change for the 19-year-old after spending five months in a cell in Georgia’s Rustavi Number Five prison, where there is only a hole in the ground for a toilet, an hour of fresh air a day, and communal showers twice a week.

Leanne Kennedy says her daughter used to boil pasta in a kettle and toast bread over a candle flame, but now she is allowed to cook for herself and other women and children in the unit, and she is learning Georgian.

“She now gets two hours outside to walk, can use the shared kitchen, and has a shower in her room and a proper toilet,” she says, describing improved conditions since her transfer earlier this month.

“They all cook for each other,” Ms. Kennedy says. “Bella would make toast with eggs and cheese and salt and pepper chicken.”

Miss Koli has been held in pre-trial detention since May, after police found 12 kg (26 lb) of marijuana and 2 kg (4.4 lb) of hashish in her luggage at Tbilisi International Airport.

Some accounts from inside the prison paint a stark picture of conditions.

In September, Georgian media widely published an open letter they said was sent from prison by Anastasia Zinovkina, a Russian political activist who was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for drug possession.

Zinovkina, who insisted drugs were planted inside her, described the sanitary conditions as “horrific” and “horrific”.

“One bar of soap is used to wash hair, body, socks, underwear and dishes,” she wrote. “If they run out of soap before the guards decide to give out new soap (which happens once every three months), they simply don’t wash.

“Toilet paper is provided once a month, only to those who do not have money in their prison account. Bathing is only allowed twice a week – on Wednesdays and Sundays – for 15 minutes.

“Girls who do not have slippers bathe barefoot or use shared slippers. They get fungal infections and spread them to each other.”

The Georgian Ministry of Justice told the BBC in May that conditions in the prison had improved significantly since previous monitoring reports issued by the Georgian Attorney General.

She added that under Georgia’s new prison law, which took effect in January last year, prisoners “are entitled to fresh air for at least an hour a day.”

He also highlighted various reforms, including vocational education programs, establishing a digital university for distance learning, and improving healthcare through an online clinic.

“Georgian authorities are putting a person-centred approach at the heart of prison reform to ensure proper management of the prison system,” she said in a statement.

The ministry also said the UN Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture visited the prison in October 2023 and “did not express any concerns regarding prison conditions, health conditions or issues related to out-of-cell activities/contact with the outside world.”

The committee’s report is confidential, but the United Nations said at the time that it encouraged the Georgian government to publish it.

This case has drawn attention to Georgia’s tough approach to drug-related crimes and its widespread use of “plea bargaining” to resolve criminal cases.

In 2024, nearly 90% of drug-related crimes in Georgia would be solved this way, says Guram Imnadze, a criminal justice lawyer and drug policy expert based in Tbilisi.

“The sentences are so harsh that plea bargaining is in the interests of both parties,” Mr. Imnadze explains. “The main strategy from the defense perspective is to negotiate a guilty plea as quickly as possible.”

He says previous agreements usually resulted in softer terms, with fewer sentences and fines.

For trafficking involving large quantities of drugs, Georgian law provides for penalties of up to 20 years or life imprisonment. Imnadzi says Ms Kole’s case coincided with the new Minister of the Interior taking office, who made drug crimes a priority.

“What they want is to now show the public the tangible results they have achieved, and 12 kilograms of marijuana is already a huge amount of public perception,” he says.

Miss Coley claimed she was tortured and forced to carry drugs, but was warned she faced 20 years in prison. But she was told she could be released for a “large sum.”

Back at Tbilisi City Court last Tuesday, the teenager heard that her family had managed to raise £137,000. Not the amount needed to release her, but enough to significantly reduce her sentence to two years. She is scheduled to appear in court again on Monday to hear the final ruling.

Mrs Kennedy says the family is doing everything they can to bring her home “where she should be”.

Miss Kohli’s lawyer, Malkhaz Salkaya, had previously said that once an agreement was reached, he would ask the President of Georgia to pardon the British teenager.

Salakaya confirmed that Miss Kohli had pleaded guilty to bringing drugs into the country, flying from Thailand via Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, but said she was forced to do so by gangsters who tortured her with a hot iron.

He said Georgian police had launched a separate criminal investigation into allegations of coercion.

When the teenager landed in Tbilisi on May 10, Georgian authorities immediately tagged her luggage, and although she tried to explain to police that someone was supposed to meet her in the arrivals hall, they did not follow through and charged her, he said.

Salakaya says there is a provision in Georgian law regarding pregnant women, raising the family’s hopes that the teenagers could be released before giving birth.

“It is written in the law that when a child is born, the mother must stay abroad until the child is one year old,” he says.

Ms Kennedy, who has been traveling back and forth between the UK and Georgia, says her daughter gets on well with staff and prisoners and has been able to bring her baby clothes.

She says her daughter’s full story “will come in due time.”

“Until then we are just a family doing everything we can for my daughter and grandson.”