An Australian grandmother - who was cleared of drug trafficking in Malaysia last month and escaped the death penalty - has been released on bail.
Following her acquittal, Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto, 54, had to remain in the country as prosecutors appealed her not guilty verdict.
She was cleared after a lengthy legal process but she was not released and allowed to fly back to Australia initially as she no longer held valid travel documents.
Prosecutors then appealed the acquittal, meaning she has to stay in Malaysia until the challenge is complete.
Exposto was arrested in December 2014 while transiting through the Malaysian capital en route from Shanghai to Melbourne.
The mother-of-four escaped being hanged after arguing she did not know about the hidden stash of "ice" and had been tricked into carrying it from China by someone posing as a US serviceman in an online love scam.
The judge would have been compelled to hand down the death penalty if she was convicted, as anyone guilty of trafficking certain amounts of illegal narcotics into Malaysia automatically faces capital punishment.
Exposto had remained in prison since her acquittal but at an appeal court hearing in administrative capital Putrajaya, Judge Mohamad Zawawi Salleh ruled she could be freed on bail of 30,000 ringgit or $9550.
He rejected an objection from prosecutors who argued she might flee the country.
Exposto's lawyer, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, criticised the prosecutors' appeal as a "waste of time".
"If they withdraw the appeal, it will bring an end to Exposto's misery," he said.
Outside court, Mr Abdullah said Exposto's passport would be surrendered as a condition of her bail.
"She has to give her permanent address while she is in Malaysia for the next one or two months and that address shall be reported to the court, and she will do a weekly report to the nearest police station from 8am to 5pm," the lawyer told reporters.
- with Reuters
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