A BRITISH teacher who was jailed on bogus drugs charges in Kuwait has finally been freed as her “ecstatic” mum says it’s been “living hell” for the family.
Sara Assayed, 35, was slapped with a 10-year prison sentence in March after drugs were allegedly found in her car – but she is expected to walk free this afternoon.
The primary school teacher, from Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, was arrested in March 2019 after Kuwaiti cops stopped her and another teacher, claiming to have found drugs in the car.
She was sentenced to a decade in prison, but an appeal court quashed her conviction last month due to insufficient evidence.
Despite her convicted being overturned, Sara was kept locked up in an “overcrowded” and “inhumane” jail in the Kuwaiti desert until today.
She will have to stay at a deportation centre in Kuwait for three days due to Covid regulations before she flies home to the UK on Saturday morning, her mum, Helen Conibear, told The Sun Online.
Speaking just seconds after taking the call from Sara to tell her she had been freed, the jubilant mum-of-four said: “I am absolutely ecstatic. The last few months have been a living hell for me and my family.
“Sara phoned me from the prison on another inmate’s mobile phone and said ‘Mum, I hope you’re sitting down – I’m free!’
“Sara was in tears. I was in tears. It has been an emotional rollercoaster but finally I hope it is now over.”
Helen, 64, claims her daughter was “fitted up” by “bent cops”.
“Sara had been friends with an American woman called Lisa and Lisa was suspected of using drugs,” she said.
The past few months have been an utter nightmare.”
Helen Conibear
“Lisa heard she was going to be arrested and fled the country a few days earlier, so the cops appear to have targeted Lisa’s friends, including Sara.
“They pulled Sara over in a car when she was being given a lift by a fellow teacher. They made Sara and her friend get out of the car and drove it round the back of a building nearby.
“Minutes later they told Sara that searched the car and found drugs and she was going to prison. She was totally fitted up. They planted marijuana in the car.”
But Helen wept tears of joy today at her terraced home overlooking the sea as she said she had been “dreaming” of Sara’s long-awaited release.
“The past few months have been an utter nightmare,” she said.
“I’ve been worried sick for Sara. She’s been phoning me when she can – on the phone smuggled in by an inmate – and she has always sounded so low.
“She’s been crying a lot and I’ve been sick with worry for her because she always sounded so depressed.
“When she gets back to Barry, I’m never letting her out of my sight again.
“All I want is my daughter home so I can give her the biggest hug in the world.”
A petition calling for Sara’s release had received nearly 600 signatures.
