Women ‘were threatened by Colombian gangsters’

The two women held over suspected drug trafficking in Peru have claimed they were forced to act at gunpoint by Colombian gangsters, it was claimed last night.

A churchman who visited Michaella McCollum-Connolly and Melissa Reid the pair in a police holding centre in Lima claimed the two women had no choice but to follow orders.

Sean Walsh, an Irish-American archbishop with the Eastern Catholic Church, said: “They told me that there were a group of Colombians that actually took them at gunpoint and threatened them.”