The 23-year-old from Brisbane,who was arrested and detained by Metropolitan police for more than 20 hours on July 21,says he is being framed over the fake threat which emerged after he staged a protest outside the Chinese embassy. Brandishing three flags—representing Taiwan and China’s oppressed Tibetan and Uyghur Muslim minorities— Pavlou also glued his hand to the front gate.
Police notified Pavlou’s legal team on Friday that they had relaxed his bail conditions,pending further enquiries,for him to return on October 21. The decision also lifts a ban on the University of Queensland student to leave Britain.
“The past four weeks have been the lowest point of my life,” Pavlou toldThe Sydney Morning Herald andThe Age. “I am so glad I can get home because I just don’t feel safe here in London.”
Pavlou,who has alienated even his some of his allies with a series of increasingly outrageous stunts in protest of Beijing’s human right record over the past two years,says he believes he “walked into a trap” .
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“The whole thing is a complete stitch-up,” he said,ahead of boarding a Qantas flight home on Saturday afternoon. “It’s like they knew I was coming,they laid a trap and I walked right into it.”
He still faces the possibility of being charged for trespassing on diplomatic premises,criminal damage and communicating false information to make a bomb hoax – which carries a seven-year jail term.
An email,which was briefly shown to Pavlou while in police custody,was sent to the Embassy earlier that day from a drewpavlou99@protonmail.me email address. Pavlou says he does have a Protonmail account,but that is not the one. However,the email prefix is identical to an account he has with gmail.