(CNN) -- A pregnant British woman, who was jailed in Laos on drug charges, will leave from the capital, Vientiane, on Thursday for Britain, said an official from the Lao Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Briton Samantha Orobator was sentenced to life in prison for heroin smuggling. Samantha Orobator is expected to arrive on home soil early Friday, the official added. The 20-year old was jailed last August after being arrested with about a half-kilogram of heroin at the airport in Vientiane, officials have said. She received a life sentence for drug trafficking.
Lao authorities had agreed to release Orobator and John Watson, another Briton jailed on drug charges from jail after signing a deal with British authorities last week. Once she returns home, the British court system will decide the conditions of her sentence. The deal to allow the return of Orobator and Watson -- the only Britons held in Laos -- was signed in May, a spokesman for the British Foreign Office said. Normally, that agreement would have to go through parliamentary procedures before passage, the spokesman added.
Though not specific to Orobator's case, the agreement was signed with her , because officials hope she can give birth in Britain. Her story made international headlines after she became pregnant in jail and her mother pleaded for her release.The circumstances under which Orobator became pregnant in prison remain unclear. She told her mother she was not raped and that the father is not a prison official. A government-run Lao newspaper reported that Orobator said she impregnated herself with sperm from another prisoner.
