After Kardashian appeal, Trump commutes drug offender's sentence

Washington DC: US President Donald Trump has commuted the prison sentence of a 63-year-old woman whose release had been championed by reality TV star Kim Kardashian.

Alice Marie Johnson, 63, had served nearly 22 years of a life sentence for a non-violent drug offense.

WVTM-TV in Birmingham, Alabama, later showed pictures of Johnson shortly after her release, running in happiness from a van towards family members holding flowers and waiting for her beside the road.

Kardashian, who is married to rapper Kanye West, met with Trump at the White House last week to appeal for the release of the great-grandmother convicted of cocaine trafficking.

The White House said in a statement that Trump had commuted Johnson's sentence and that she "has accepted responsibility for her past behavior" and been a "model prisoner."

"Despite receiving a life sentence, Alice worked hard to rehabilitate herself in prison, and act as a mentor to her fellow inmates," the White House said.

"While this Administration will always be very tough on crime, it believes that those who have paid their debt to society and worked hard to better themselves while in prison deserve a second chance," it said.