This article is more than 11 years old

This article is more than 11 years old

The trial of a pregnant Briton who could face death by firing squad if she is convicted of drug smuggling is to take place tomorrow, according to a legal charity.

Samantha Orobator was arrested at Wattay Airport in Laos in August last year after she was allegedly caught with 680g of heroin. In Laos, smuggling more than 500g carries a mandatory death sentence.

Reprieve lawyer Anna Morris flew into the country today fearing the trial would start before they were allowed to meet on Tuesday.

According to the charity, Orobator was able to make contact with their office in London today and said she had been told the trial would start tomorrow morning.

Reprieve said the Laotian authorities brought the trial forward in an apparent attempt to stop lawyers from intervening. Up until now the 20-year-old from south London has had no legal representation.

Speaking from Laos, Morris said she would meet with British consular officials tomorrow.

She said she understood the system in Laos was that defendants were only able to see lawyers a week before their trials or, in some cases, on the same day trials began.

She told Sky News: "That has been our concern from the outset, that she has had no access to legal counsel before this week.

"We don't know that she is going to have any before any trial takes place and we are deeply concerned about the implications of that for her given her vulnerability, given her age and given her lack of familiarity with the system."

She said British officials had only been able to visit Orobator for a period of 20 minutes once a month.

The British only learned of her arrest when she had already spent many months languishing in the notorious Phonthong prison.

"Through no fault of their own they simply haven't been allowed the access to her," Morris said.

"We are concerned about her healthcare standards, we are concerned about her nutrition, we are concerned about her lack of pre-natal care.

"This is a vulnerable young woman with child so we are extremely concerned about the lack of access that anyone has had.

"It's simply not acceptable to allow this young woman to be without a lawyer and then to move the trial to a time she is not certain of and before her British lawyers and consular representatives have a chance to see her."

Reprieve director Clive Stafford Smith said: "Somehow she managed to get a call through. She told us the trial had been set for tomorrow.

"This whole process is a farce. The trial is just being put on as a show.

"They wanted to get it all over with before she was able to see a British lawyer."

Her mother, Jane Orobator, a student at Trinity College Dublin, broke down as she said: "I'm so scared. I'm so scared. She does not even have her legal representative and they are bringing her for a trial. I don't know what they are up to there."

She said she found out about her daughter's arrest around late September but did not believe it was really her.

"Initially I didn't believe she was the one because of her personality," she told Sky News.

"I don't believe something like that has happened to her. I thought it was somebody else. She's not that type of girl. It's not in her."

The justice secretary, Jack Straw, said: "There's not been a sentence of death here but our view about and our policy about capital punishment is absolute: we are against capital punishment in any circumstances and wherever a British citizen has been sentenced to death we make very very strong representations for that sentence not to be carried out and for it to be commuted."

Laos broke international agreements on consular relations by not informing the British, apparently using the excuse that they did not have access to a fax machine.

There is no British embassy in Laos and the nearest is in Thailand.

The FCO found out "by coincidence" when the Australians passed on information from another inmate in Phonthong prison.

Foreign office minister Bill Rammell said he will raise the case with the Laotian deputy prime minister when they meet in the UK on Thursday.

Campaigners have also raised questions over how Orobator, who is due to give birth in September, could have become pregnant while in jail.

Stafford Smith said: "She is five months pregnant, without ever having met a lawyer, facing a show trial for her life

"If this provokes a miscarriage, the Laotians should understand that they have caused the death of this baby.

"There can hardly be a circumstance where scheduling a capital trial is less appropriate."

She has been held since her arrest at the notorious Phonthong prison, where inmates have complained of being beaten and abused.

Orobator was born in Nigeria but lived in south London with her aunt from the age of eight.

She lived in Camberwell and Peckham before leaving the country to travel to Ireland, Holland and Thailand.

She is understood to have been arrested in Laos on her way back to the UK.

In the prison, cells measuring four square metres are used to house up to six prisoners.

The daily ration reportedly consists of two bowls of pig fat water soup and 500g of sticky rice, and most prisoners rely on their families to deliver food.

Other prisoners have reported incidents of abuse and torture, with some inmates having their genitals burnt.

Since 2003 at least 39 people have been sentenced to death in the east Asian country.