An Istanbul court sentenced two young Frenchwomen, Ibtissem, 22, and Mariam, 23, to ten years in prison each on 23 December 2025 for carrying nearly 25 kilos of cannabis from Thailand.[1] The pair had been arrested on 28 February during a stopover at Istanbul airport.[1] They were carrying two suitcases holding two lots of 12 kilos of the drug.[1] Each woman was also fined 100,000 Turkish lira, about 1,990 euros.[1]

The judge convicted them of drug transport rather than drug dealing, which would have carried a heavier sentence.[1] Their lawyers recalled that cannabis trafficking is punishable by 20 years in Turkey and cocaine trafficking by at least 30 years.[1] The defence said its aim now was to obtain the women’s transfer to a French prison.[1] Turkey, a transit country for drugs between Asia, the Middle East and Europe, deals severely with drug trafficking.[1]

At the first hearing in September, the women said a friend and his accomplice had given them the suitcases in Bangkok to hand to the friend’s mother in Belgium.[1] Both women have always maintained that they did not know what they were carrying.[1] Ibtissem’s aunt said the childhood friend was in prison in Amiens, which the two women had not known.[1] They have spent ten months in Silivri prison, west of Istanbul.[1]