Fresh charges against cocaine suspects

By William Yaw Owusu

Thursday, 27 July 2006
FRESH charges have been preferred against the two Venezuelans standing trial at the Fast Track Court for importing 588 kilogrammes of cocaine into the country.

Joel Mella, 35, a machine operator, and Halo Cabezza Castillo, 38, businessman, are now charged on four counts of conspiracy, importation of narcotic drugs without lawful authority, and possessing narcotic drugs without lawful authority .

They pleaded not guilty to the all the charges and were remanded into prison custody by the court, presided over by Mr. Justice E.K. Ayebi.

When full trial commenced yesterday Police Superintendent Edward Tabiri, giving evidence for the prosecution, said that on November 24, last year, he led a team of police officers to House Number 348 at Mempeasem, East Legon,Accra, on the instructions of the Director of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) where they arrested the two accused about 2pm.

"We got to the house which was fenced and fortified with a metal gate but when we knocked and there was no response, we scaled the wall into the house where we arrested Mella who was in one of the rooms in the upper floor," he told the court.

Witness said during the search of Mella’s room, police discovered incriminating items such as ammonia (used to convert cocaine into cracks), a machine used to compress the cocaine into compact pieces, gloves, white polythene wrappers and KLM Cargo stickers, brown cellotape, and a bottle believed to be for testing cocaine.

"This raised our suspicion and we decided to search for more evidence," he said, and added that when one of the officers peeped through the key hole of the room opposite that of Mella, they saw cartons packed there.

He said as Mella would not give them the keys, they forced the door open.
In that room, the witness said, the police found subtances compressed and wrapped in boxes, adding that tests proved them to be cocaine.

Witness said Mella led them to another room where "they found a quantity of the cocaine scattered on the floor some mixed with water "He advised us not to add them to the main ones seized earlier since it will contaminate it," witness said.

He said that Mella claimed that the cocaine belonged to someone called Shamo, a blackman and offered to call him " but they spoke in Spanish so I siezed the phone from him and asked Shamo to meet us in 30 minutes to settle us so that his brother will be released".

Witness said that in the process, Castillo came to the house and was also arrested.

He told the court that investigations, at the Ghana Immigration Service revealed that Mella had a Colombian passport whilst Castillo possessed a Venezuelan passport but they claimed that the passports were with their host.

Defence Counsel, Obeng Sakyi and Kwabla Dogbe Senanu objected to the attempts by the prosecutor, Ms Gertrude Aikins, Chief State Attorney to lead evidence in respect of the accused’s immigration status, saying that they had not been charged for that.

The judge then ruled that if the prosecution wanted to lead evidence in that respect they should charge them accordingly.