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A New Zealand woman has been pardoned and freed from a Thai prison, where she spent the past 11 years for attempting to smuggle $4 million worth of heroin out of the country.
Mother-of-three Phyllis Tarawhiti, of Wainuiomata, Lower Hutt, was sentenced to death in 1996 when she was 38.
However, the Bangkok court immediately commuted the sentence to 50 years in prison, because Tarawhiti had pleaded guilty to trying to smuggle 250 grams of heroin, with a street value of $4 million, out of Thailand.
Her sentence was later reduced to 35 years on appeal.
At her trial, Tarawhiti told the Thai court she had fallen into drug-smuggling after a relationship break-up.
A number of other people were later convicted in New Zealand for their parts in the drug smuggling plan.
Back home in New Zealand, Tarawhiti told the Dominion Post newspaper she thought she would never be freed and when her royal pardon came through she felt numb.
In 2001, the Government presented a petition for Tarawhiti's pardon, once she had served a jail term equal to what she would have served in New Zealand for a similar offence.
But it wasn't until January 26 this year that Thai authorities accepted a new pardon application, also supported by the New Zealand Government.
Tarawhiti was freed immediately and arrived back in New Zealand on February 3.
She is staying with family in Auckland.
Tarawhiti told the paper said she was still adjusting to life in New Zealand, and remembering what it felt like to be free of the Lad Yao Correction Centre in Bangkok -- nicknamed the "Bangkok Hilton".
"I need some time just to...try and get that other place out of my head," she said.
- NZPA
