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The child of a Birmingham heroin mule has finally been released from the barbaric Pakistan prison which has been home for the entire six years of her life.

Malaika, daughter of Khadija Shah – given a life sentence for attempting to bring £3 million worth of the drug into the UK – was born in notorious Adiala Prison.

She has only known the squalid confines of a jail, in Rawalpindi, that was built to contain 1,900 of Pakistan’s most hardened, and violent, prisoners, but currently has a population of 6,000.

BirminghamLive's sister title The Sunday Mercury highlighted Malaika’s shocking plight last July – a story that cranked up demands for the little girl’s freedom.

This week, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office confirmed that she was returned to the UK three weeks ago.

Malaika’s current location has not been given, but it is believed she is living with family in the West Midlands.

(Image: Photo: Reprieve)

Her mother, Khadija, has not been so lucky. She is destined to rot in Adiala.

For those looking after Malaika, supported by human rights charity Reprieve, the focus is now on easing the youngster into a normal, carefree life. That will take some time.

In a brief statement, a Foreign Office spokesman said: “Our staff continue to assist a British woman jailed in Pakistan. We supported her family in bringing her daughter to the UK, working with them and the Pakistani authorities.”

The child will need professional help as she adapts to life in the outside world.

Read how Birmingham is reacting to this story here.

Up until this month she and her mother have survived in a cell shared by six others.

She will need support to overcome the loss of her mother.

In unforgiving Adiala, a jail that has been hit by TB and measles epidemics, there will be no such support for grieving Khadiji.

She narrowly avoided execution after being caught with two suitcases crammed with heroin in May 2012. Behind bars, the 32-year-old continues to protest her innocence. She claims she was set up, told the luggage contained nothing more sinister than wedding garments.

Khadija claims she was asked to take the cases while on holiday and staying in an Islamabad guesthouse. The killer Class A drug was concealed in the folds of garments – 120 wraps, in all.

Six months pregnant and accompanied by her two children, aged four and five, the former Sheldon Heath Community School student was arrested at Benazir Bhutto International Airport. Her children were detained with her, but flown back to Britain after four-and-a-half months.

Raising a child in a cramped cell

Khadija has spoken to the media about her hand-to-mouth existence in Adiala, which houses 400 women prisoners. Some, like Khadija, are raising children in cramped cells.

In 2014, she said: “Malaika likes to play with empty wrappers of food items. I usually try to keep our surroundings clean, too.”

Alarmingly, Khadija confessed: “If Malaika was not here, I would be crazy because things are very hard. She keeps me strong.

“I am still breastfeeding,”

When Khadija was sentenced, her then lawyer said the case underlined the Pakistan authorities’ poor record in snaring drug barons who recruit vulnerable mules.

“Khadija was asked to carry the bags by an individual and she has given the authorities his details,” he said.

“The anti-narcotics force seems only interested in picking up the carriers – women and children – and it isn’t going after the big fish.”

Those comments are echoed by Khadija’s mother, who told the BBC: “I know my daughter. She is a very innocent girl.”

The Birmingham mum’s life was spared following tireless campaigning by charity Reprieve. It feels a crackdown on couriers such as Khadija has done nothing to stem the steady stream of heroin from Pakistan to Britain.

Terrorists and blasphemers

Adiala’s rag-tag prison population is believed to hold around 70 terrorists and a handful of blasphemers.

In 2014, it emerged that a 70-year-old Edinburgh man was among the latter.

He was accused of referring to himself as a prophet in letters.

Some prisoners are put to work weaving carpets in a nearby factory. Authorities admit fights are commonplace in the jail’s crammed confines.

In the past, Adiala dealt solely with political prisoners. Now, it is the final destination for foot soldiers in the narcotics trade, many of them foreign.

They survive on a diet that consists mainly of bread and soup.

One former inmate told Pakistan news site Dawn.com: “The meat reeks of diesel rather than cooking oil. Drinking water is supplied through bore wells which makes the inmates susceptible to numerous diseases.”

Those diseases have included a serious TB outbreak.

In a 2007 report on overcrowded Punjab prisons, Dawn stated: “Adiala inmates constantly complain of harsh and brutal prison conditions, especially of overcrowding, filth and stinking toilets.

“Most prison barracks smell terrible and lice, bedbugs and fleas abound.”

West Midland drug mules

Khadija Shah is not the first West Midlands resident to be sucked into the murky, and potentially deadly, world of drug delivery and distribution abroad.

Barlow and Chambers

Kevin Barlow, born in Stoke, paid the ultimate price. He and fellow heroin courier Brian Chambers were hanged in Malaysia in 1986.

The pair, based in Australia, were arrested after 141.9 grammes of the narcotic was discovered in a suitcase at Bayan Lepas International Airport, George Town.

(Image: Birmingham Mail)

Barlow, on his first mission as a drug mule, gave the game away by shaking uncontrollably and sweating profusely as he approached the checkout.

Karyn Smith and Patricia Cahill

Birmingham girls Karyn Smith and Patricia Cahill were caught with £4 million worth of heroin at Bangkok Airport in 1990.

The drugs – all 66lbs of them – were spirited in shampoo bottles.

The teenagers were handed long sentences, but served only three years after being granted a pardon.

Colmin Smith

In 2014, Birmingham’s Colmin Smith nearly died after some of the 61 pellets packed with cocaine ruptured in his stomach.

The 48-year-old was taken seriously ill while flying from Antigua to Gatwick. The airliner was forced to make an emergency landing in Bermuda.

In a Bermuda courtroom, Smith thanked God for saving his life. Because he did not intend to offload the drugs in Bermuda, the mule avoided a custodial sentence.

Lance Whitmore

Former Bromsgrove soldier Lance Whitmore was jailed for 50 years after being caught with nearly 200 ecstasy tablets in Thailand.

The 26-year-old was caught attempting to sell the mind-bending party drug to an undercover police officer.

After Whitmore was sentenced in 2015, his heartbroken mother, Debbie Caswell, said: “I am devastated. I don’t know how he will cope.”