Heroin Suspect Refused Bail

The Forty-four-year-old Nigerian woman who allegedly swallowed 60 pellets of heroin with an estimated international street value of $1.6 million, was yesterday refused bail by an Accra Circuit Court.

Margaret Etim Sunday, a trader, was remanded by the court, presided over by Mr Anthony Oppong, to reappear on March 3, 2004.Margaret was arrested by officials of the Narcotic Control Board (NACOB), in collaboration with other security agencies, at Accra?s Kotoka International Airport on Thursday, January 29, 2004 during normal routine checks.

She has been provisionally charged with importation of narcotic drugs, holding and possessing narcotic drugs without lawful authority.Her plea has not been taken.Refusing bail, Mr Oppong said the court was of the view that the accused person was being held under reasonable suspicion.

He said the court took into account the fact that the accused person was a foreign national and may abscond when granted bail.He further submitted that the court also took into account the severity of punishment for such an offence and it was, therefore, prudent for the court to remand her in lawful custody.

Earlier, the Chief State Attorney, Mr Anthony Gyambiby, had prayed the court to remand Margaret for some few days because the prosecution was still waiting for the results of the content and weight of the substance from the Ghana Standards Board (GSB) to enable it to prepare substantive charges against her as well as to accordingly arraign her before the appropriate court for trial.

He submitted that the accused person might abscond and commit a similar offence when granted bail. However, counsel for the accused person, Mr Kwabena Mensah, said holding an accused person on grounds of provisional charges was alien to the law.

Mr Mensah pleaded with the court to grant his client bail since investigations into the case have been completed. The facts of the case are that the accused person arrived in the country on board a United Arab Emirates flight number EK 781 from Dubai.

The prosecution said the NACOB officials suspected that Margaret had in her possession the drugs because she checked out with 20 kilogrammes luggage but hurriedly left the airport and boarded a taxi cab with a small hand bag. The NACOB officials stopped her and she appeared nervous during interrogation.

Her demeanour raised the suspicions of the security agencies and as a result, she was taken to the 37 Military Hospital where an x-ray revealed that she had swallowed some foreign substances.Margaret was later given a liquid by the security agencies which aided her to expel the pellets.

Preliminary examinations conducted by the security agencies revealed that the contents of the pellets were heroin.