Two British teenage girls left prison Thursday after serving nine-month sentences for trying to smuggle cocaine out of Ghana in laptop computer bags, prison officers and the girls' lawyers said.
Lawyer Sabine Zanker said the two were in good spirits as they left the juvenile prison. She said she expected they "would have fond memories of friends they had made at the center."
Zanker declined to comment on whether they had returned to England.
Prison officer John Allotey confirmed that the girls had been released but declined to provide further details.
The two students from London were arrested in July 2007 at the Accra airport with about 13 pounds (6 kilograms) of cocaine in their computer cases. They were both 16 at the time.
Officials have said the two were recruited in London by drug traffickers who promised them an all-expenses-paid vacation in the West African country in return for serving as drug couriers. The teens left for Africa telling their parents they were going to France, Britain's customs service said.
The girls were convicted in November of possession and trafficking of narcotic drugs and later sentenced to nine months. However, some had expected them to get credit for time served before the conviction, which would have meant an earlier release.
They could have received up to three years in jail according to Ghanaian laws.
West Africa is increasingly becoming a transit point for drugs headed to Europe. Cocaine, mostly from Colombia, is brought on small planes and dropped on islands off the little-policed Atlantic Ocean coast, then distributed to couriers who carry it into Europe.
British and Ghanaian officials began collaborating last year after a surge in drug-related arrests at London airports linked to West African flights.
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