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Guinea-Bissau: Trial starts in case of plane seized with 2.6 t of cocaine
In Guinea-Bissau, the trial in the case of a plane loaded with 2.6 tonnes of cocaine that landed at Bissau’s Osvaldo Vieira airport airport is scheduled to start on Monday, nearly two months after the aircraft was seized.
There are five men in the dock – two citizens of Mexico, one Colombian, one citizen of Ecuador and one from Brazil – and the trial will begin without it being known who owned the seized drugs.
The five suspects, who have been in prison since the discovery of the drugs on 7 September, are accused of the crimes of “international drug trafficking, criminal association and irregular landing of an aircraft at Osvaldo Vieira International Airport.”.
With the trial scheduled to begin on Monday, the Public Prosecution Service has asked Guinea-Bissau’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for an official interpreter to accompany the trial hearings, as four of the accused do not speak Portuguese.
According to the order issued by the Public Prosecution Service, to which Lusa has had access, eight witnesses have been lined up for this trial, seven of whom are Guinea-Bissau nationals and one a foreigner.
A court source linked to the case told Lusa that the five accused “didn’t want to make any statements” during the investigation phase and the authorities “still haven’t managed to find out who actually owns the drugs.”
The Judicial Police (PJ) has said that the plane, which landed in Bissau on 7 September, was from Venezuela, although the authorities in that country refuted the claim, pointing out that the aircraft had never been on Venezuelan soil.
The aircraft was seized and the president of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, has said on several occasions that it will be sold and the proceeds will go into the country’s public coffers.
Less than two weeks after the seizure, the PJ incinerated the drugs in Safim, in the presence of international observers.
