A woman from Kilrush, Co Clare, yesterday handed in a letter to the British Prime Minister, asking for his assistance in having her 24-year-old daughter released from a prison in Cuba.
Ms Maureen McGee (47), who left Kilrush more than 15 years ago to live in London, is trying to have her daughter, Rachel, freed after she was given a 15-year sentence for drug-trafficking last year. A subsequent application for an appeal was turned down.
Her local MP and the London-based human rights group Fair Trials Abroad claim McGee's hearing was held entirely in Spanish, and she only got to speak to her lawyer five minutes before the proceedings.
Rachel McGee was found guilty of involvement in the attempted purchase of £9 million worth of cocaine in Havana. Cuban police gave evidence at her trial that she was part of a plan to bring some of the drug back to Britain.
The case took place after she and a friend were arrested along with two Britons, who were meeting four drug-dealers from Jamaica.
McGee claimed she had never met the Jamaicans before and had only met the two Britons on the flight to Cuba. She said she was never in possession of any drugs and was only guilty of "stupidity".
Ms Maureen McGee handed the letter in to Mr Tony Blair with two of her sons, Daniel and Michael John, and her daughter, Kathleen.
She said in her letter: "I am pleading with you, Mr Blair, to look into what's going on here to see their so-called evidence and come to your own conclusions".
The McGee family claims Rachel is being held in a "cockroach-infested cell", her weight has dropped to six stone and she has a kidney infection.
The Fair Trials group will attempt to lobby the Cuban leader, Dr Fidel Castro, on the issue directly over the next few months.