A Malaysian woman acquitted of a drug-trafficking charge in Australia has returned home saying she was tricked into carrying opium resin by a friend.

Australian police caught Ruzana Udin, 32, with five kilograms of opium resin in her baggage after she arrived at Sydney Airport on March 27 last year.

They seized the tar-like block wrapped in tape but allowed her to enter the country before arresting her at Brisbane Airport when she tried to return to Malaysia.

After a week-long trial that ended Friday, an 11-member jury in Sydney decided she had no knowledge of the contents of the package and acquitted her of the charge, said the New Straits Times .

"I was betrayed by someone I had no reason to distrust, especially after all the favours I had done for him," Ruzana told the newspaper.

"Because of him, 13 months of my life is gone. I could have achieved so much during that time. Now I have to start from scratch."

The 36-year-old's outburst was targeted at an Iranian, identified only as Haj, whom she had befriended in Malaysia, shortly before she left for Sydney, said the report.

Herbs for sick friend

Ruzana, a former freelance computer and car saleswoman, said that Haj, her client and business partner, had given her a package he said contained herbs for a sick friend in Sydney.

"I was naive. I did not check the contents of the package. There was no reason to do so, he was a business associate and a friend."

"I realise now that what I did was stupid. I shouldn't have been so trusting," she was quoted as saying by the national Bernama news agency.

She thanked her family and two Malaysian lawyers for helping her. One of the lawyers had set up a fund which that helped pay Ruzana's RM650,000 legal fees.

The divorced mother of three faced a possible life sentence if convicted of drug trafficking.

The Iranian was arrested in April last year at an apartment in Kuala Lumpur with two kilograms of opium.

Ruzana said her term in Australia was a bitter experience but one that had made her wiser. "Now that I have been given another chance in life, I want to spend it meaningfully," she told the Star daily.