BY Martin Dunlop | August 13 | 
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Archbishop in Peru: Scottish and Irish young women were ‘set up’ over drugs
After prison visit, an Irish-American archbishop in Peru believes that Scottish teenager Melissa Reid (above right), who was arrested alongside her Irish friend, Michaella McCollum Connolly (above left), on suspicion of drug trafficking, has been set up.
Archbishop Sean Walsh of Lima visited the young women—who were arrested at Jorge Chavez Airport in Lima—in prison, ahead of a scheduled court appearance tomorrow and heard Ms Reid say she was forced at gunpoint to carry the drugs.
“My personal feeling with these girls? They really and truly have been set up,” Archbishop Walsh said. “They are embarrassed at how everything has affected their families back home. They are devastated by that but I assured them they need to stay strong. They are due to appear in a court Wednesday when they will be interrogated by a judge.
“They believe they were set up and they will use that as a defence.”
Peruvian police claim Ms McCollum Connolly was stopped with almost 5.8kg of cocaine in her luggage. A similar amount was alleged to have been found in Ms Reid’s baggage.
In a video release, Ms Reid, 19, who is from Lenzie, East Dunbartonshire, said she was ‘forced to take these bags’ in her luggage and she denied knowing anything about the drugs.
If charged and convicted of the illicit cocaine smuggling charges, the women, who travelled independently to Ibiza to work for the summer, could face sentences of between 10-25 years in one of the harshest prison regimes in the world.
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