Oman frees Catalan woman sentenced to life imprisonment

Oman has released a Catalan woman who had been serving a life sentence in the country. 

Fàtima Ofkir, from L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, was imprisoned in 2018, when she was 18, after being arrested for drug trafficking. 

Her defense team announced on Saturday that the sultanate had granted her amnesty, coinciding with the end of Ramadan. 

Ofkir spent seven years in a women's prison in the country for a sentence that her lawyers considered disproportionate. 

They believe she had an unfair trial and that, had she been tried in Spain, she wouldn't have even gone to prison. 

Ofkir was caught with seven kilograms of morphine in a hotel in Muscat, the country's capital. 

"Psychological nightmare" 

In 2022, Catalan News spoke to Rosario Reyes Carballo, Ofkir's mother, about the "psychological nightmare" of dealing with her daughter's imprisonment on the other side of the world, and her own anguish and frustration at the lack of developments. 

Listen to the podcast below, recorded in 2022, to learn more about the case, including an interview with Ofkir's mother.