London - The case against an aristocrat’s son accused of smuggling £4.5 million (about R78.4m) of cocaine into Kenya appeared close to collapse on Monday.
Jack Marrian, 31, the grandson of the sixth Earl Cawdor, was arrested in July after the alleged discovery of 220lbs (about 110kg) of cocaine hidden in bags of sugar being shipped via the Kenyan port of Mombasa.
The Marlborough College- educated trader, who is the son of Lady Emma Campbell, was due to go on trial on Monday at the Kibera Law Courts in Nairobi.
But it emerged that the authorities had tested only a small portion of the alleged drugs haul.
Prosecutor James Warui said the Kenyan government’s drugs laboratory had been unable to confirm that the shipment was cocaine, having tested only a sample.
He told a magistrate: ‘Due to the volume of the substance that is involved, he (the government’s drugs analyst) has not yet finalised his report, which we would want to start with. I don’t want to start with a case when we still have holes in exhibits.’
The trial was adjourned pending further tests - much to the fury of Marrian’s family, who accused the Kenyan authorities of ‘clutching at straws’.
His father David said: ‘The prosecution don’t seem to have presented any evidence to any of the lawyers in court that could in any way work as a case for them. The prosecution do not know what they are going to do so it’s easier for them to ask for an adjournment. Jack is disappointed today because he hoped that the case would be dropped. He knows there is no evidence against him. We have faith that he will be found not guilty.’
* AFP reports that the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) - which worked with Spanish police to track and seize the shipment in late July - believe Marrian and his co-accused, Kenyan clearing agent Roy Mwanthi, knew nothing of the drugs concealed in a sugar consignment from Brazil.
"We got information from our office in Spain. The intelligence was that their Spanish counterparts had information about a container that had suspected drugs in it," said Melvin Patterson, a DEA spokesman.
Spanish police believe the drugs were intended to be unloaded in Valencia and sold on the lucrative European market, but something went wrong and they were shipped onward to Kenya.
"A criminal group based in Valencia, Spain, tried to get cocaine out of a container, but failed," Patterson said.
When the shipment arrived in Mombasa, Kenyan anti-narcotics police discovered the plastic-wrapped bricks of cocaine hidden among sacks of sugar as well as a duplicate seal.
Experts say this is a sure sign of the "rip-on, rip-off" or "blind hook" smuggling technique whereby cartels secretly stash their illegal products inside a legitimate consignment removing the drugs at a stop en route and replacing the broken seal with the replica.
"The Spanish stressed that this was a 'rip-off' load and the recipient of the container would have no knowledge that it was being used to transport drugs," said Patterson.
Marrian's case has caused a sensation in Britain, where the aristocratic background of his mother Lady Emma Clare Campbell of Cawdor and his attendance at top private schools, including the alma mater of Prince William's wife Katherine, have caught the eye of the press.
Sources familiar with the case suggest the two men were taken into custody because of public and political pressure to make an arrest after news of the bust broke in local media.
Daily Mail, AFP