A BRITISH law student facing 25 years languishing in a Dubai jail over a “single line of cocaine” is returning home, her mum claims.
Mia O’Brien, 24, was on holiday when she was arrested in October 2024 after police stormed a party.
Cops found 50g of cocaine in the flat – and Mia was hauled in custody.
After a one-day trial held in Arabic in July, Mia, from Liverpool, was handed a 25-year sentence and a £100,000 fine.
But Mia appears to be set for release after her mum Danielle McKenna posted on social media that she will be returning to the UK.
Danielle wrote on Facebook: “My baby girl is coming home.
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“Am still in shock, am buzzing, can’t wait to give her the tightest cuddle ever.”
She previously insisted Mia was innocent, branding the case a “miscarriage of justice”.
Danielle claimed Mia had just made “a very stupid mistake” while visiting a friend and her boyfriend in the strict United Arab Emirates city.
Mia’s mum did not specify how her release came about, although she was given support from the Foreign Office.
Campaign group Detained in Dubai previously said that her appeal against the conviction was close.
Founder Radha Stirling said in a September news release that the law student was appealing her conviction.
She said: “Mia O’Brien is preparing to appeal her 25-year sentence in Dubai after being convicted of drug possession in a one day trial held entirely in Arabic.
“Despite pleading not guilty, Mia was found guilty in proceedings her family and legal advisers have condemned as deeply unfair.
“Dubai police have a history of rushing to secure convictions without the rigorous evidentiary standards we expect in the UK.”
Stirling continued: “We’ve seen fabricated confessions, reliance on circumstantial evidence, and a disregard for due process. I would urge the public to withhold judgement.
“Mia’s case could be the latest in a long line of miscarriages of justice.
“Mia has pleaded not guilty from the start, but the system has already failed her. Unless this appeal is taken seriously, she risks losing decades of her life.”
Mia has been held in Al-Awir Central Prison – notorious for once being dubbed “Dubai’s version of Alcatraz”.
She wound up in there after she, a female Brit pal and the pal’s boyfriend were arrested at the party.
While Mia tested positive and was thrown into custody, her friend – identified only as Emma – tested negative and walked free, returning home to the UK.
Emma’s boyfriend was also sentenced to 25 years.
According to Mia’s former cellmate, the student was convinced she had unfairly taken the fall.
The ex-inmate previously told The Sun: “Mia had fallen out with her friend as she said it was the boyfriend who had the cocaine.
“Her problem was that they had all been arrested and Mia had it in her system.
“Her friend didn’t so she was released and is back in the UK.
“Mia thinks she must have stitched her up to get home.”
Despite reportedly admitting to snorting a line, Mia never thought she’d be treated as a trafficker, the cellmate said.
Mia’s mum had launched a fundraiser in a bid to fight her conviction.
After GoFundMe suddenly pulled her appeal, she started a page on Christian fundraising site GiveSendGo – which has now also been “unpublished”.
Danielle had written on the original page that Mia had “never done a bad thing in her life”.
She added: “This is a young girl, who went to university to do lawand unfortunately got mixed up in the wrong so-called friends and made a very stupid mistake and is now paying the price.“
It comes after pregnant Brit drug mule Bella Culley landed back in the UK last month after a five-month ordeal in a hellhole jail in Georgia following her arrest for smuggling cannabis from Thailand.
The 19-year-old had told a court she was forced to traffic the stash from Thailand by a brutal gang who branded her with an iron and forced her to watch beheading videos.
But Bella’s dramatic release reignited hopes for former air stewardess Charlotte May Lee, 21, who remains locked up in a Sri Lankan jail.
Charlotte, from Surrey, was arrested at Colombo Airport in May after authorities allegedly found 46kg of the potent synthetic drug kush in her luggage.
The stash, reportedly worth £1.2 million, had been packed in large, vacuum-sealed bags.
She insists she had “no idea” drugs were hidden inside and claims they were planted during her trip from Bangkok, Thailand.
The 21-year-old, who who has not yet been formally charged, faces up to 25 years in jail if convicted.
Inside ‘Dubai’s version of Alcatraz’
MIA O’Brien has been locked up in the Al-Awir Central Prison in Dubai.
The jail is used for both male and female convicts with them being seperated once they step through the chilling gates.
Women make up one of the four blocks inside the huge jail, according to the British Government website.
Horror stories from inmates who have previously been locked up and those from the families of Brits still trapped behind bars paint a disturbing picture of Al-Awir.
In 2012, Karl Williams was imprisoned for a year after police found drugs in the boot of his hire car.
He compared the Al-Awir jail to the “Dubai version of Alcatraz” during his sentence.
In his memoir, he recalled seeing inmates being stabbed to death in violent clashes that were not stopped by guards.
In a statement, he said that his testicles had been electrocuted while he was interrogated by police.
“They pulled down my trousers, spread my legs and started to electrocute my testicles,” he wrote in the statement.
“It was unbelievably painful. I was so scared. I started to believe that I was going to die in that room.”
Their lawyers also said that the men were forced to sign documents in Arabic at gunpoint.
Karl claimed Russian gangsters ruled the prison wards and allegedly used HIV-positive inmates to rape and deliberately infect others as a form of punishment.
At least four HIV-positive prisoners at Al-Awir were allegedly denied medication up to five months, according to another shocking report by the Human Rights Watch.
British footballer Billy Hood made similar accusations as he said prisoners were tortured and left to die from diseases.
His claims were repeated in 2021 by 60-year-old Albert Douglas who told The Sun prisoners are raped, tortured and even starved by the cruel guards.
Dubai’s prison system and government deny all the claims.