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A BRITISH law student sentenced to 25 years in prison over cocaine charges is facing “living hell” in a Dubai jail – but three questions still hang over her case.
Mia O’Brien, 23, was arrested last October after she was reportedly found with 50g of cocaine – worth around £2,500 in the UK.
She was arrested last October after she was found with 50g of cocaine[/caption]
Her mum, Danielle, insists her daughter is innocent[/caption]
Convicted after a one-day Arabic trial on July 25, the Brit from Huyton, Merseyside, is now caged in Al-Awir prison, dubbed the Gulf state’s “Alcatraz”.
Her devastated mum Danielle McKenna insists her daughter is innocent, branding the verdict a “miscarriage of justice” and revealing Mia “has never taken a drug in her life”.
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The young law student, who dreamed of becoming a solicitor, is sharing a filthy cell with six women and sleeps on a mattress on the floor.
“She’s just made a stupid mistake after going over to see a friend and her boyfriend in Dubai,” Danielle said.
“She was crying on the phone and saying ‘Oh mum – please forgive me’.”
But as the family fights for clemency, three key mysteries still loom large over the case.
Mia wasn’t alone when the police swooped.
She was arrested alongside her friend and the friend’s boyfriend, and all three were charged with drug dealing.
Yet only Mia’s name and story have surfaced publicly.
Her mother says “others were involved”, but there’s silence on whether the pair were convicted, freed, or even still in Dubai.
Despite her arrest last October and conviction in July, Mia’s ordeal only became public days ago, when her mum set up a GoFundMe appeal.
Until then, the family had kept the reason for her jailing secret.
Danielle admitted they were “shocked and heartbroken” when they first learned about the drugs and had struggled to go public.
MIA O’Brien has been locked up in the Al-Awir Central Prison in Dubai.
The jail is used for both male and female convicts with them being seperated once they step through the chilling gates.
Women make up one of the four blocks inside the huge jail, according to the British Government website.
Horror stories from inmates who have previously been locked up and those from the families of Brits still trapped behind bars paint a disturbing picture of Al-Awir.
In 2012, Karl Williams was imprisoned for a year after police found drugs in the boot of his hire car.
He compared the Al-Awir jail to the “Dubai version of Alcatraz” during his sentence.
In his memoir, he recalled seeing inmates being stabbed to death in violent clashes that were not stopped by guards.
In a statement, he said that his testicles had been electrocuted while he was interrogated by police.
“They pulled down my trousers, spread my legs and started to electrocute my testicles,” he wrote in the statement.
“It was unbelievably painful. I was so scared. I started to believe that I was going to die in that room.”
Their lawyers also said that the men were forced to sign documents in Arabic at gunpoint.
Karl claimed Russian gangsters ruled the prison wards and allegedly used HIV-positive inmates to rape and deliberately infect others as a form of punishment.
At least four HIV-positive prisoners at Al-Awir were allegedly denied medication up to five months, according to another shocking report by the Human Rights Watch.
British footballer Billy Hood made similar accusations as he said prisoners were tortured and left to die from diseases.
His claims were repeated in 2021 by 60-year-old Albert Douglas who told The Sun Online prisoners are raped, tortured and even starved by the cruel guards.
Dubai’s prison system and government deny all the claims.
The mystery deepened further when GoFundMe abruptly pulled the fundraiser for “violating guidelines” – cutting off one of the family’s few lifelines of support.
A GoFundMe spokesperson told The Sun: “It was removed because it violates Term 9 of the Prohibited Conduct section in our Terms of Service.
“Term 9 prohibits raising funds on GoFundMe for the legal defence of certain alleged crimes.”
The fundraiser – which had a target of £1,600 – made just under £700 before it was removed.
The 50g of cocaine – a “huge amount” according to Mia’s mum – was found in her Dubai apartment in “one big chunk”.
Prosecutors accused Mia of intent to supply, but she pleaded not guilty.
She was also fined a staggering £100,000 by the court before being sent to the hellish Dubai Central Prison.
Her mum insists her daughter was just “caught up in it” and is hopeful she will be allowed to return to the UK soon.
Mia has never taken a drug in her life and would never dream of selling cocaine, according to her mum.
Danielle is confident that her daughter is innocent as she labelled Mia a “victim of a miscarriage of justice”.
Adding: “I definitely don’t think she was going to sell the drugs or bring them back.
“It’s a lot of drugs but there are others involved and she has just been caught up in it.”
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