"I came to Ghana to buy diamond not drugs" -Venezuelan

Accra, June 22, GNA - A Venezuelan who is being tried in connection with 588 kilogrammes of cocaine deposited in a house at Mepeasem, East Legon, Accra, on Friday said he visited Ghana to purchase diamond and not drugs. He said due to the high price offered for the diamonds, he declined to buy the gem.

Moises is standing trial and Italio Gervasio Rosero a.k.a. Italio Cabeza Castillo, 38, a businessman. The accused persons are being held for conspiracy to commit crime, importing 588-kilograms of narcotic drugs without lawful authority and possessing narcotic drugs without lawful authority. They have pleaded not guilty and have been remanded into police custody by the Court. The third Venezuelan, Vasquez Gerado Duarte David, a.k.a. Bude or Shamo is at large.

Opening his defence before the Fast Track High Court, Joel Meija Duarte Moises, a 35-year-old machine operator, said he arrived in the country on September 9, 2005 on board an Alitalia flight from Caracas through Nigeria. Led by his counsel, Mr Kwablah Senanu, Moises said he had in possession his passport and money for one Shamo whom he learnt was Brain Douso, a prosecution witness. Narrating how the Police arrested him at Mepeasem on November 24, 2005, Moises said he was lodging on the first floor of the house when the Police swooped on him. He explained that he lodged in the house because he did not like the food being served by the hotel and his money was running out. Moises denied that he was a tenant of the house adding that he did not pay for it. He said he did not know anything about the consignment of cocaine intercepted. He said materials including gloves, a rubber pipe and bunch of keys tendered in evidence did not belonged to him.

The accused, however, admitted that the two mobile phones seized by the Police belonged to him. According him he did not give instruction to the Police on how to handle the seized cocaine, saying that, was not his business. He said Gerado Vasquez, the third accused person now at large, was not his brother but maintained that he (Vasquez or Bude) had hosted him when he arrived in Ghana. Moises denied that he was one of the directors of Compimchex Company Limited, a firm believed to be owned by Vasquez. The case of the prosecution is that on November 24, 2005, a team of detectives from the Headquarters of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), acting upon a tip-off that there was cocaine in house Number 348 at Mepeasem in Accra, went to the house where they met Moises.

Moises was arrested and he led the Police to his upper room where three bottles of ammonium used to turn cocaine into crack, a machine used in compressing the cocaine, 13 pieces of gloves and a quantity of plastic wrappers were found. The Prosecution said brown cellulose tapes, a filtering bottle used in filtering and sniffing cocaine, an exercise book used in recording the names of people who had purchased and been supplied with the drugs and two cell phones were also found. Case was adjourned to July 5 for prosecution to cross- examine Moises.