Victim of the Justice System-Innocemt and Imprisoned

Rana khalifa,(HMP Highpoint ) has spent over 800 days and nights in captivity for an offence that she had no knowledge of.
Her conviction was based on the assumption that she must have known that the bottles of rum her friend colliected from the duty free shop in kingston contained cocaine.

Cocaine mule taken for ride on dream trip holiday

A woman who claims she was duped by friend won no sympathy from customs but prison reform group says 11-year sentences are harsh
Rana Khalifa was in two minds about the offer of a 10-day holiday to Jamaica from a friend, Stephanie Cox.
She felt a little uneasy about the surprise gift, though she had lent her money and offered moral support during her divorce. But her real concern was leaving work at short notice.
After talking to her mother and her employers at Cover Shots, a photographic agency in London's West End where she worked as a £30,000-a-year PR manager, she accepted.
In Jamaica, Khalifa agreed to carry some bottles of duty-free rum on the return flight because she did not intend to buy any alcohol for herself. She and Cox were stopped at customs at Heathrow late on December 13, 1997. The bottles, which were sealed and in two boxes, contained cocaine with a street value of £260,000.
Five months later, both women were convicted at Isleworth crown court and jailed for 11 years.
Khalifa, 25, had no idea she was being used as a "drugs mule" or that Cox had friends in Jamaica who were cocaine dealers. She assumed Cox, who is in her 40s, was innocent until other prisoners told her she had confessed.
This is just Khalifa's version of the story, but she had never been in trouble with the police before and she might have served her sentence by now if she had confessed before the trial. If she admitted involvement in drug smuggling today, she would be released on parole after six years.
But Khalifa will not admit to something she did not do. "Being found guilty of a crime you did not commit is like having all your insides and your spirit ripped out. This started as a horrific nightmare and has become my cold reality. I've got to fight on and hope that someone will come forward with some evidence to prove what I am saying."
Khalifa does not fit the profile of a mule. According to customs and excise, smugglers are normally unemployed, in some sort of financial difficulty and have a criminal record. It is a risky business - one in 10 get caught.
Customs officials have little sympathy for those who plead ignorance, saying it shows barely credible naivete in an age when travellers are constantly reminded not to carry anything which belongs to someone else.
But the Howard League for Penal Reform, which estimates there are 2,000 drug smugglers in English and Welsh jails, says the sentences can be unnecessarily harsh.
"The justice system is waging a very simplistic war," said Frances Crook, its director. "Often, these people are pawns. Long sentences create more victims and they do not get to the international criminal element who are behind the trafficking. Drug smuggling is a very foolish thing to do, but couriers suffer disproportionately."
Khalifa accepts that if she had harboured any suspicions before the flight and said nothing, she would be culpable. She maintains she was duped.
According to Khalifa, she met Cox when they were neighbours in Battersea, south-west London, seven years ago. It was a slightly odd relationship; Khalifa, then 19, says she was the sensible one, while Cox was something of a lost soul - her marriage wasfalling apart and she had had a series of failed relationships. The call about the holiday came in late October 1997 at a time when their friendship had cooled. "I think the rest of the money from the divorce had come through and she said she wanted to say thank you to me for all the support I had given her and to apologise for the times she had not made an effort to see me.
"At first, I said no. But I changed my mind after speaking to people at work. My mother encouraged me to go. I had never been to Jamaica before. She said I couldn't pass up such a wonderful opportunity."
Khalifa claims Cox, who had a Jamaican boyfriend, asked her about the duty-free allowance halfway through the holiday as they sunbathed by the swimming pool of their hotel in Montego Bay.
"It was said in a very casual way. I hardly ventured from the hotel, but Stephanie had been out several times to meet people. It didn't occur to me that she was plotting anything."
Cox allegedly told Khalifa the two boxes of rum needed to be ordered and collected at the airport because they were flying home in the evening when the duty-free shop was closed.
Khalifa claims she did not see the bottles until Cox presented her with a case in the airport concourse and admits she willingly took her share on board.
At Heathrow, they were stopped as they walked through the green channel. Both boxes were on Cox's trolley.
Khalifa says she was chatty with the officer who searched their luggage, showing a brochure of the hotel where they had stayed, and was helpful when he inspected one of the bottles.
When Cox was asked whose rum it was, she said it belonged to both of them. The women were allowed to go, but arrested as they loaded their luggage into a taxi.
"I presumed they had made a mistake and they had got the wrong people. I was tired and a little confused, but I wasn't nervous. I thought we would be out within minutes."
The women were charged jointly and both claimed they knew nothing about the cocaine when the trial started.
The prosecution alleged it was a carefully organised plan, though there was no supporting evidence.
Summing up the prosecution case, Judge Durrant said: "[They] say no organiser bringing into this country drugs with a street value of £260,000 would allow those drugs to be placed in possession of anyone other than a courier."
Shortly after their arrest, Khalifa claims Cox broke down in front of her at Holloway jail, crying: "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."
"We couldn't go into court pointing the finger at Stephanie, because she could have turned round and blamed me.
"I was cross-examined for a few minutes and Stephanie was cross-examined for several hours. I think that says a lot about who the crown prosecution service believes was responsible for all this."
Her solicitor Desmond Wright is trying to persuade a woman who shared a cell with Cox to make a formal statement, but she has not been in contact since she left prison.
"This woman said Stephanie told her I knew nothing about the drug smuggling," said Khalifa. "It might not be enough to free me, but it would be a start."

Nick Hopkins, Crime Correspondent The Guardian Tuesday August 31, 1999