Egypt Sentences British Woman to 25 Years for Drug Smuggling

A 50-year-old British woman, Maureen Paleschi, was jailed for 25 years at hard labor by a Cairo court on Sunday for smuggling heroin.

Paleschi, from Cleveland, northeast England, was found guilty of bringing about 13 pounds of the drug, hidden in a wooden elephant, into Egypt last February. She was also fined about $4,440.

Attorney Raouf Mahdi argued that an Egyptian, Mohammed Niazi, gave the elephant to Paleschi as a present in Karachi and that she was unaware of its contents.

Niazi was jailed for 25 years at hard labor and fined $17,600.

A second Egyptian, still abroad, received the same sentence in his absence. Two other Egyptians were acquitted.

Paleschi’s sister, Marion Arnold, 42, who was arrested with her at Cairo airport, was acquitted last October. She came back to support her sister during the three-day trial.

Paleschi fainted when lawyers translated the sentence to her from Arabic into English, a British Embassy official said. “She collapsed,” he told reporters. “She was in shock.”

Arnold wept on hearing the sentence and was comforted by relatives of the Egyptian defendants.

The prosecution had demanded death sentences for Paleschi, who had pleaded not guilty through her lawyer, and the four Egyptians accused with her.