Briton Jack Marrian and Kenyan Francis Mwanthi charged with trafficking nearly 100kg of cocaine in one of the country’s biggest drugs seizures at Milimani Law courts criminal division on Friday August 12,2016.
BY SAM ALFAN.
The government has lost bid in seeking the detention of a British man linked to a cocaine haul worth over half a billion shillings nabbed at the coast.
This is following the dismissal of an application filed by the Director of Public Prosecution opposing the release of Jack Marrian on a Sh70 million bond.
Justice Lukas Kimaru said that the application by the DPP lacks merit and does not produce any reason for Marrian to be held in custody.
Marrian and a Kenyan, Roy Francis Mwanthi is charged with trafficking nearly 100kg of cocaine in one of the country’s biggest drugs seizures in recent years.
They denied the charge.
The haul was found by Kenyan police and US Drug Enforcement Agency officials in containers that had arrived from Brazil last week.
The class A drugs were allegedly shipped around the world in containers labelled as carrying sugar destined for Uganda.
Marrian was born into the famous line of Scottish nobility known as the Clan Campbell of Cawdor.
The prosecutor said that documents found on the ship that was used to transport the cargo detailed Marrian as a director of Mshale Uganda Limited, the firm which was to receive the containers.
Police say that Marrian and Mwanthi, a director of Inland Africa Logistics Limited, had placed calls to the people processing the cargo at the port before it was impounded.
A spokeswoman for Mshale Commodities said: “Mshale is aware of speculation regarding an allegedly compromised shipment consigned to Mshale Commodities. We can confirm that Mshale’s managing director, Jack Marrian, is assisting the Kenyan authorities to provide them with whatever information they require.
“Mshale operates stringent procedures to protect the integrity of its supply chain. Until these investigations are concluded, we are unable to comment further.”
“We are aware of the seizure and the subsequent arrest of a UK national, and have assisted our Kenyan and US law enforcement partners. However, this is now a matter for the Kenyan authorities so it would not be appropriate to comment further at this time,” investigators say.
The maximum penalty for drug trafficking in Kenya is a life sentence and a fine of more than Sh1, 000, 000.
