Rapper Fredo is RELEASED after spending five months in hell-hole Dubai jail for swallowing cannabis stash in airport
CHART-TOPPING rapper Fredo has been released after being held for five months in a hell-hole Dubai jail for being caught with cannabis.
The Funky Friday star claimed he didn’t realise he had the Class B drug on him after sailing through security at a British airport.
He admitted swallowing his stash which left him locked in a cell without a toilet and living off a daily diet of chicken biryani since September.
Fredo, real name Marvin William Bailey, revealed he was “feeling rehabilitated” on Instagram, telling fans: “Don’t be scared to come to Dubai. Just don’t bring anything that you’re not meant to bring and you’ll be alright.
“Don’t listen to the rumours. They’ll treat you nice. They’ll give you a lot of chicken biryani. They’ll give you a lot of thinking time. We all make mistakes.
“Just don’t go to jail. No toilets – nothing. Hole in the ground. No tissue roll. None of that. It’s crazy.
“But it makes you appreciate your life and all the good stuff you’ve got going on.”
Fredo, who has had hit singles with the likes of Stormzy, Dave and Central Cee, showed off a new beard and requested a personal trainer to shift extra weight gained.
He also flicked through pages of lyrics which he’d been working on while inside – and offered supporters a chance to win his makeshift wallet made out of a milk carton by a fellow lag.
But the Brit musician rubbished rumours he concealed the weed in his backside and was sentenced to five years, which is the minimum term for trafficking in the UAE.
While Fredo didn’t clarify what he was charged with, use and possession carries a minimum three-month sentence – and he is understood to have spent around five months behind bars.
The 29-year-old, who has now quit smoking, added: “It was a big accident. I would never ever bring weed to Dubai. Getting right back to the music.
“No five years. I’m home. Just waiting on CM40. Then I’ll be home soon. Mistakes happen. Don’t judge me – it was an accident.
“And I never put no weed in my behind as well. I panicked and I swallowed it. Whoever tried to say I put some weed in my behind, don’t do that.
“Love lying on me saying I got five years putting weed in my behind. I would never do nothing like that.
“I panicked and swallowed it. I didn’t realise I had it. This is what happens when you smoke. England let me go through it and they caught me over here but I never knew.”
The Foreign Office had confirmed it was supporting a British man held in the UAE and was in contact with local authorities.
Radha Stirling, CEO of advocacy organisation Detained In Dubai, previously told The Sun: “Wherever he is, it’s going to be in overcrowded conditions, the lights are gonna be on all night… it’s completely disrupted.
“He’s not going to get access to a medicine he needs. There is the risk, obviously, of violence, it’s intimidating.”
Bailey, from London, released No1 hit Toxic Trait with Stormzy last summer before performing it together at Glastonbury festival.
Dramatic video filmed on a British Airways jet returning from Barbados showed him being arrested at Heathrow airport just hours before the track dropped in June.
The dad-of-one was taken into custody but later released without charge.
It came months after the rap star was hit with a three-year driving ban after being found over the legal cannabis limit in a £55,000 Range Rover Velar in Edmonton, North London.