Oregon woman freed from East Timor prison
four months after arrest
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[December 26, 2014]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A
veterinarian from Oregon who was arrested while traveling in East Timor
in September was released from jail on Thursday after nearly two months
of detention, the U.S. State Department said.
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Dr. Stacey Addison, 41, who was said by friends to be visiting
East Timor as part of a round-the-world trip, was initially detained
and held for five days on a drug charge. She was then conditionally
released without her passport.
She was arrested again in late October when she appeared in an East
Timorese court to retrieve her passport and was sent to a prison in
Dili, the capital of the Southeast Asian country also known as
Timor-Leste. Addison was held there until her release on Christmas
Day, according to the State Department.
Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said U.S. officials were aware of
reports that Addison's passport was still held by the East Timorese
government and that Addison had not yet left the country.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2014/Dec/26/images/ads/current/charrons_bch041713.png) CNN reported that Addison appeared before reporters on Thursday at
the home of former East Timorese President and Nobel Peace Prize
laureate Jose Ramos-Horta, where she has been invited to stay as a
guest for the time being.
Asked what she would do when able to obtain her passport, she
replied: "Go home."
"I don't think my mom would ever forgive me if I didn't come home
immediately and stay for awhile," Addison said.
Addison, a resident of Portland, Oregon, has insisted through family
and friends that she was wrongly accused.
According to an account posted on an online petition seeking her
freedom, Addison was first taken into custody with a fellow taxi
passenger who police arrested after he stopped to pick up a package
of illegal drugs while sharing a ride with her from near the
Indonesian border to Dili.
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When re-arrested nearly two months later, she was told that the
prosecutor had filed an appeal to have her conditional release
rescinded without notifying Addison or her lawyer.
U.S. officials visited her several times in prison while working
behind the scenes to secure her release, State Department officials
have said.
(Reporting by Leslie Wroughton in Washington; Additional reporting
and writing by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Paul Tait)
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