Update
GEORGE NEWS - An application for South African Thai prisoner Ashley Oosthuizen's (23) leave to appeal was heard in front of an independent bench of judges in the Koh Samui court in Thailand yesterday, Wednesday 17 August.
Her legal representatives in Thailand will inform her family of the judgement in due time.
"We are just waiting for the complete translation of the 17-page document to make sure we understand everything completely. It might take a couple of days," her mother, Lynn Blignaut, told George Herald.
Oosthuizen's application for an appeal was filed earlier and the state did not oppose it. If the appeal is successful, she might be acquitted and return to South Africa.
She is currently held in custody in the central prison in Nakhon Si Thammarat in Southern Thailand.
The former Outeniqua High learner is serving a life sentence after she was found guilty of drug dealing in 2021. She was initially told she would be sentenced to death, but on sentencing in August that year, she received life imprisonment (25 years).
Precious phone call
The prison granted Oosthuizen and her mother 12 and half minutes to do a video call on Wednesday 6 July.
Blignaut says her daughter is still doing well under the circumstances and is healthy. She has also started working as a librarian in prison. "She obviously desperately wants to come home, but she is in good spirits. She works at the library every weekday from 09:00 to 11:00. She loves books," she says.
Oosthuizen, a former Outeniqua High learner, is serving a life sentence after she was found guilty of drug dealing in 2021. She was initially told she would be sentenced to death, but on sentencing in August that year received life imprisonment (25 years).
Arrested
She left for Thailand when she was 19 and met her then boyfriend, Tristan Nettles, while she was working as a teacher. When she was laid off due to a dispute about her qualifications, Nettles offered her a position at a restaurant.
She was arrested for drug dealing after she accepted a package containing ecstasy from a delivery man at the restaurant in October 2020 - allegedly on behalf of someone else.
Oosthuizen however maintains that she was unaware of the contents of the package and in a statement, Nettles admitted to using the restaurant for regular drug deals without his girlfriend's knowledge.
But Nettles, a self-confessed dark web drug dealer with a history of criminal convictions, was never prosecuted as he left Thailand before Oosthuizen's arrest.
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