A lawyer for one of the British women accused of drug smugling in Peru says they will have to decide soon whether they are going to plead guilty or continue to maintain their innocence.
Peter Madden, who is representing Michaella McCollum, 20, from Northern Ireland, said she and co-accused Melissa Reid, also 20, from Scotland, are scared and confused but will have to decide within weeks what to plead.
"They are basically confident enough that what they have told the authorities will be eventually proved," Mr Madden said.
"The Peruvian system is still that they are innocent until proven guilty but in reality they have to try to prove that what they said happened to them did happen."
Mr Madden, a well-known human rights solicitor from Belfast who has acted for high-profile republicans, has just returned from South America.
Melissa's father has already been over to Peru to see his daughter He added: "They are frightened. They are unsure of their future. They are in a prison in which they are the only two foreigners."
Mr Madden said that, under new laws soon to take effect in Peru, they could be released after two years if they accept responsibility for their crime.
He added: "The position is that at some stage there will have to be a decision made by Michaella and Melissa as to whether or not, in our terms, they plead guilty, or plead not guilty and go to trial.
"That stage hasn't been reached yet."
The pair say they were forced to travel from Ibiza to Peru Mr Madden told BBC Radio Ulster: "Anybody who is arrested and found in possession of drugs goes straight into prison. There is no bail.
"If they want to protest their innocence in a trial that may take up to or over two years, whereas if they accept their responsibility, as it is put, it could be over in six months.
"The law is changing so they could actually serve just over two years and be released.
"There is a new law going through the Peruvian Congress which states that any foreigner who has a sentence of less than seven years will get two-thirds remission and be removed from the country after a period of one third.
"This is a fairly complex decision but at some stage they will have to make that decision."
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