17:58
Tieng Anh Vui
Video footage shows Melissa Reid and Michaella McCollum questioned in Peru on suspicion of drug trafficking
Two women held in Peru over suspected drug trafficking have said they were forced at gunpoint to do it, a senior churchman has said.
Melissa Reid, 19, from Lenzie, near Glasgow, and Michaella McCollum, 20, from Dungannon, were stopped trying to board a flight to Madrid last week.
Archbishop Sean Walsh, from the Eastern Catholic Church, visited the women in a police holding centre in Lima.
The archbishop said they told him they were targeted by Colombian gangsters.
Video released
Police said they found more than 24lb of cocaine, with a street value of £1.5m, in food packaging in the women's luggage at Lima airport in Peru.
The archbishop said: "They told me that there were a group of Colombians that actually took them at gunpoint and threatened them."
He said the women said they were held for a while by the gang before being taken to Morocco and back to Peru again.
"I don't know how that happened and I don't know how they got over to Peru," he said.
"There's no direct flight from Morocco, they go through Spain probably, but if they threatened them in some way, that to me seems like a credible defence."
The National Police of Peru has released a video of the women being questioned just after their arrest.
Ms Reid answers basic questions - such as her name and nationality - then claims she did not know what she was carrying.
She told her interviewer: "I was forced to take these bags in my luggage".
Biggest exporter
The two women flew to Peru from Spain where they had been on a working holiday on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza.
BBC world affairs correspondent Rajesh Mirchandani said it is thought they may have been approached there by South American cartels supplying the lucrative European drugs market.
They were heading back to Spain when they were arrested.
Peru has overtaken Colombia as the world's biggest cocaine exporter, and charity Prisoners Abroad said it had seen an increase in the number of British people arrested on drugs charges in the country.
The women's families, who were unaware they had even gone to Peru, described the situation as a nightmare.
Ms Reid's father, William, said there was no way his daughter would have been willingly involved.
Prison conditions in Peru are notoriously tough, and if convicted the women could face many years behind bars.
Reported missing
East Dunbartonshire MP Jo Swinson said she was "deeply concerned" to hear about Ms Reid's arrest.
Ms Reid had posted hundreds of photographs to her Facebook page over the summer, but it has not been updated since 21 July.
Ms McCollum, who holds an Irish passport, was reported missing last week after her family heard nothing from her for 12 days.
The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed it was providing consular assistance to Ms McCollum's family.
A statement published on the National Police of Peru's website said the two women were alleged to have been acting as "drug mules".
They were detained by drug enforcement officials at Jorge Chavez International Airport after being detected by a sniffer dog.
The women are due to appear in court on Wednesday.
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