Laos returns pregnant prisoner to Britain

VIENTIANE, Laos, Aug. 6 (UPI) -- A pregnant British woman jailed in Laos on drug charges was scheduled to leave Laos Thursday, a Laotian official said.

The official from the Lao Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Samantha Orobator was expected to reach British soil early Friday, CNN reported.

Laos agreed to release Orobator and John Watson, another British citizen jailed on drug charges, after signing an agreement with Britain last week.

Orobator, 20, was jailed last August after being arrested with about a half-kilogram of heroin at the airport in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, officials said. She was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to life in prison.

Her imprisonment grabbed headlines after she became pregnant while in jail. CNN said the circumstances under which Orobator became pregnant remain a mystery. She told her mother she was not raped and that the father is not a prison official, but a Laotian government-run newspaper reported Orobator as saying she impregnated herself with sperm from another prisoner.

Once Orobator returns to Britain, the the British court system will decide conditions of her sentence, CNN reported.