British teens deny Ghana drug charges

Updated 14.05 Fri Jul 27 2007

Keywords: cocaine, Yatunde Diya, Yasemin Vatansever, Ghana

Two British teenage girls accused of attempting to smuggle cocaine from Ghana to the UK have pleaded not guilty at an Accra court.

Yasemin Vatansever and Yatunde Diya, both 16 from north London, were arrested at Accra's Kotoka airport on July 2.

Officers of Ghana's Narcotics Control Board have said the girls were being paid £3,000 each to carry the bags to Britain

Ghanaian anti-drugs officers said they found 6kg (13lbs) of cocaine in two laptop bags they were carrying as they boarded a flight to Britain.

After their arrest, the two girls said they were tricked into carrying the laptop bags by male acquaintances in Ghana and Britain and that they did not know what was in them.

On July 12 they were provisionally charged with illegal possession of drugs and attempting to smuggle cocaine into the UK.

Under Ghanaian law, Yasemin, the London-born daughter of immigrants from Cyprus, and Yatunde, a British citizen of Nigerian descent, face up to three years in prison if found guilty.

Officers of Ghana's Narcotics Control Board have said the girls were being paid £3,000 each to carry the bags to Britain. They say the men the girls met paid for their flights, accommodation and food in Ghana.

The drugs have an estimated value of £300,000 on British streets.

Ghanaian police have said they are looking for three men, one in Britain and two in Ghana, in connection with the case.

Sabine Zanker, of Fair Trials Abroad, which is representing the girls' interests, said: "They vigorously deny the charges against them, particularly that they were recruited to transport drugs from Ghana to the UK in return for £3,000. Both girls maintain that such an arrangement never existed."

Ms Zanker said the group is concerned that the girls' solicitors have not had enough time to prepare their defence.

Earlier this month, Yasemin said: "There were basically two boys over here who gave us two bags. We never thought anything bad was inside... and they told us to go to the UK and drop it off to some boy... at the airport.

"It was basically like a set-up. They didn't tell us nothing, we didn't think nothing, because basically we are innocent. We don't know nothing about this drugs and stuff, we don't know nothing."

West Africa has become an important staging post for Colombian cocaine on its way to lucrative European markets.