Irish journalist serving drug-trafficking sentence in desperate plea from South American jail cell

AN IRISH-BORN journalist serving an eight-year sentence in a South American jail for drug trafficking says she’s completely innocent and desperately needs to get home.

Dublin-born Roisín Zoe Savage yesterday made a desperate plea from inside her prison cell to be brought home to be with her seriously ill mother.

The 33-year-old says she was duped into carrying drugs through an airport by a man she’d travelled to Ecuador with to help resolve his visa problems. He had lived close to her, her husband and their two children in London but had been returned home to South America.

He met her on her arrival in Ecuador in February 2003 and bought presents for her family and packed them into a rucksack which was later found to also contain drugs. The cache was uncovered by airport police.

Ms Savage was arrested at Quito Airport where cocaine was found in the bag. Her case only went to court 16 months later. Despite much evidence that she was set up by her so-called friend, she was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Now she says she has to get home. Her mother has a brain tumour and is getting weaker all the time.

“I just want to see her and hold her. I’ve been in touch with the Irish consul and I hope to be home soon,” she said.

“I had no contact with my family for 17 days after my arrest,” she said in an interview with RTÉ yesterday. “I told them I knew where my friend’s house was but they wouldn’t go. I had to pay money for everything. I had to pay $50 to a doctor for a phonecall to the embassy and it was them who let my family know,” she said.

She’s been assaulted in prison and says said she feels totally used and abused. “I feel confused, hurt, silly, very stupid. I don’t know who to trust anymore.

“I can’t stay here for eight years. Life is very tough. We have to pay for our own light, food and beds. My family has been sending me money, as have people I’ve never met.”

Wexford-born nun, Sr Catherine Codd, has met the mother of two in prison and says she is also convinced of her innocence.

“I’ve known her for the past year and in that time, I’ve gotten to understand her and know her. My impression is that we are not being duped. I believe in the integrity and sincerity I have experienced in her in the past year.”

Fianna Fáil TD, Pat Carey, was her former school vice principal.

He says that organisations such as Fair Trials Abroad have taken on her case, an indication of their belief also that there has been a grave miscarriage of justice.

“We are hoping that we would manage to persuade the Ecuadorian government, who are now signatories to the Strasbourg Agreement on Repatriation, that she may be able to serve out part of her sentence in an Irish prison. Or she might be sent home with an unconditional pardon.

“We are reasonably hopeful that we will get Roisín home.”