| July 18, 2008 Two British teens were released
from a Ghanaian detention centre on Thursday after serving nine
months for trying to smuggle cocaine out of the West African
country in laptop bags, an officer at the centre said.
John Allotey confirmed that the girls had left the juvenile
prison in the capital, Accra, but said he could not provide
further details.
Officials and representatives for the teenagers declined to
comment, but reporters gathered outside the facility saw a
number of British diplomats and Ghanaian officials leave the
centre in cars on Thursday morning.
The release ends a 12-month ordeal for the two students from
London, who were arrested in July 2007 at the Accra airport with
about 6 kilograms of cocaine in their computer cases. They were
both 16 at the time.
The girls were convicted in November of possession and
trafficking of narcotic drugs and later sentenced to nine
months. However, some had expected them to get credit for time
served before the conviction, which would have meant an earlier
release.
They could have received up to three years in jail according to
Ghanaian laws.
Officials have said the two were recruited in London by drug
traffickers who promised them an all-expenses-paid vacation in
Ghana in return for serving as drug couriers. The teens
reportedly left for Africa telling their parents they were going
to France.
West Africa is increasingly becoming a transit point for drugs
headed to Europe. Cocaine, mostly from Colombia, is brought on
small planes and dropped on islands off the little-policed
Atlantic Ocean coast, then distributed to couriers who carry it
into Europe.
British and Ghanaian officials began collaborating in 2007 after
a surge in drug-related arrests at London airports linked to
West African flights. |
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