Laura Plummer's anxious wait over jail pardon

The family of a British woman jailed for smuggling hundreds of painkillers into Egypt have visited her in prison amid reports she will be given a president’s pardon.

Laura Plummer was arrested in October last year after she was found with 290 Tramadol tablets in her suitcase. Tramadol is a prescription opioid that is legal in the UK but not in Egypt.

The Sun claims Ms Plummer is set to be released from Qena prison after Egypt president Abdul Fattah al-Sisi pardoned her as part of an annual day of celebrations.

However, the BBC reports the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was unable to confirm her early release.

Ms Plummer’s sister, Rachel, told the BBC her sister was “doing well, but we still don’t know when she will be released”.

The shop worker from Hull, in East Yorkshire, was jailed for three years in Egypt on Boxing Day after she was detained after arriving at the Red Sea resort of Hurghada with her Egyptian partner Omar Caboo.

She claims the painkillers were to treat Mr Caboo’s backpain.

“She was taking those tablets to help her man who had been in an accident,” Ms Plummer’s other sister, Jayne Synclair, told the BBC.

“He did not even know she was bringing them. She was doing it to be kind. How can you be sentenced to three years just for being kind?”