Ghana drugs trial Britons due in court

Updated 10.02 Wed Aug 22 2007

Keywords: cocaine, Ghana, Yasemin Vatansever, Yatunde Diya

Two British teenage girls accused of attempting to smuggle £300,0000 worth of cocaine to the UK from Ghana are due in court.

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

"It was basically like a set-up" - Yasemin Vatansever

On July 12, they were provisionally charged with illegal possession of drugs and attempting to smuggle more than 6kg (13lb) of cocaine into the UK in laptop bags.

They could serve up to three years in jail if found guilty in the juvenile court. The girls insist they were set up.

Defence lawyers are expected to begin presenting witnesses at the hearing, according to an official of the Ghana Narcotics Control Board. Prosecution witnesses finished giving evidence against the girls last week.

"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," said Sabine Zanker, of Fair Trials Abroad. "Both girls maintain that such an arrangement never existed."

Last month, Miss Vatansever said from prison: "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."

Miss Vatansever is the London-born daughter of immigrants from Cyprus, while Miss Diya is a British citizen of Nigerian descent.