Yasemin Vatansever and Yetunde Diya, both 16 and from London, were arrested in July and were found to be carrying the drugs hidden in the lining of two empty laptop bags.
Yasemin Vatansever had drugs hidden in a laptop bag
Their lawyers told a juvenile court in Accra, where they have been on trial since their arrest, that the girls did not know what was in the bags and that they had been duped by international smugglers.
The families of the two girls said they were disappointed at the verdict, which was handed down in a hearing held behind closed doors. In a statement they said they planned to appeal. Sentencing was deferred until Dec 5.
The two girls, students at a college in Islington, north London, had told their parents that they were on a school trip to France when in fact they had flown six hours across Africa to Ghana.
There they had what became an all-expenses-paid holiday during which they partied in Accra, relaxed by their hotel pool and visited the country's Atlantic Ocean beaches.
As they returned to Kotoka International Airport in the capital for the British Airways flight home, the girls were handed the laptop bags, which they were told would be collected by a man on arrival at Heathrow.
They were stopped before boarding after acting suspiciously at the airport by officers involved in joint British-Ghanaian anti-drugs drive called Operation Westbridge.
Two other young Londoners were arrested at Accra's airport earlier this month and found to have 3.5 kilos of cocaine hidden in the bags or clothes, or in pellets in their stomachs that they had swallowed
You Might Also Like :
0 comments:
Post a Comment