(AFP) –

LONDON — A woman, transferred when she was heavily pregnant from Laos to Britain to serve out her life sentence for drugs trafficking, has given birth, her lawyers said Saturday.

Samantha Orobator flew back to London last month after the two countries signed a prisoner transfer agreement.

Orobator pleaded guilty to smuggling heroin and would have faced the death penalty in Laos had she not been pregnant.

The 20-year-old gave birth to a baby girl several weeks ago after being briefly transferred from a London prison to hospital, a spokeswoman for legal charity Reprieve said.

"It came earlier than we thought but we're not sure if the doctor got the date wrong or it came early," the spokeswoman said.

The government has insisted that Orobator will "serve out her sentence in Britain" despite claims by Reprieve that her conviction in Laos was a sham.

It was still unclear how Orobator became pregnant in an all-women's prison.

Reports have said another British prisoner, jailed in Laos also for drug smuggling, is the father, but his sister has said there is no evidence of this.

Orobator was arrested last August at the Lao capital Vientiane's Wattay airport, trying to board a plane to Thailand.

In June, a Vientiane court convicted her of trafficking 680 grammes (1.5 pounds) of heroin.

Normally, anyone found with more than 500 grammes of heroin faces execution but the Lao government gave assurances to Britain that a pregnant woman would not receive the death penalty.