The two British teenagers who were sentenced to 12 months imprisonment for attempting to smuggle cocaine out the country have been released. They were released from their Borstal Institute base on Thursday where they were being held after serving their full sentence. Vantansever Yasemin and Yetunde Diya, both 16, were arrested on July 2, last year for possessing six kilogrammes of cocaine concealed in their laptop bags at the Kotoka International Airport. They were found guilty of conspiracy and possessing narcotic drugs without lawful authority on November 21, 2007 by a juvenile court in Accra and subsequently jailed. By convention the two girls were supposed to have been released on April 18, this year. This is because anybody who is sentenced to 12 months' jail term in Ghana receives three months reprieve thereby serving only nine months. But exercising their discretion the Ghana prison officers denied the girls that reprieve saying they would be released only after they had served the full jail term of 12 months. That decision did not go down well with a London-based Human Rights group, Fair Trials International (FTI). Speaking on the release of the girls on Joy FM, the head of the legal team of the FTI, Sabine Zanker the girls and their parent shad heaved a sigh of relief. She said while the girls were happy about their new found freedom, they were also sad departing because they were treated with extreme kindness while in jail. Ms. Zanker said the girls will want to return to school in the UK and come back to Ghana “under different circumstances”. She stressed the need for government to arrest the big fishes in the drug trade in the country. She believes the girls were set up to divert attention and allow bigger fishes to go scot-free. Yasemin and Diya are currently waiting for final paper work to be completed for them to be flown home. Story by Malik Abass Daabu