Businessman gets 15 years for dealing in drugs

Accra, June 4, GNA - An Accra Fast Track High Court on Thursday sentenced a 45 year-old businessman Theophilus Eugene Afari Bossman to 15 years' imprisonment for attempting to export 2,174 grammes of cocaine to the United Kingdom.

Bossman reportedly concealed the drugs in a false compartment of one of his two travelling bags.

He pleaded not guilty to attempting to export narcotic drugs without license from the Ministry of Health and Possessing narcotic drugs.

The court presided over by Mr. Justice Charles Quist however found him guilty and convicted him accordingly.

A month prior to his arrest, Bossman reportedly sought bail for a drug courier who was in the custody of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB), saying the suspect was his "boy."

NACOB therefore launched surveillance on the accused. The court was convinced that the prosecution proved its case and rejected Bossman's defence that the bag was handed over to him by a friend known as Kakra of East Legon in Accra to be handed over to a relative in the United Kingdom.

Bossman in his defence said he did not know the content of the bag. According to the court it found it difficult to believe that a businessman who had stayed in UK for the past 30 years and someone who had had several travelling experience would collect a bag which weighed heavier than his travelling bag to be sent to the United Kingdom. The court commended the timely intervention by officials of the Narcotics Control Board, adding that Bossman would have succeeded in exporting the drug.

Before sentencing him, counsel for the accused Captain (Rtd) Nkrabeah Effah-Dartey submitted that the accused was a first offender and that the court should give him the minimum sentence. Prosecution however pointed out to the court of the fight against the drug menace all over the world.

The facts of the case was that on March 27, last year, Bossman who has dual nationality arrived at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) to board a British Airways flight to the United Kingdom. He had with him two suitcases and a hand luggage checked in and went through departure formalities. The prosecutor said when he reached the NACOB checkpoint, he was recalled and escorted to the Baggage Terminal where he identified his bags.

In the presence of the NACOB officials the convict opened one of the bags which contained his belonging and toiletries, while the other had been locked.

When he was asked to open the bag, he said he did not have the keys so officials of NACOB forced it open and found that it contained some dirty used clothes.

When the content was offloaded, the officials pierced the bag with a sharp needle because it was still heavy and some whitish substance poured out from a false compartment. The substance had been sealed in a brown envelope and taped. The substance was sealed in the presence of Bossman and forwarded to the Ghana Standard Board (GSB) for analytical examination and it was found to be cocaine weighing 2,174 grammes.