VENEZUELANS CLOSE CASE

Joel Meija Duarte Moises, one of the two Venezuelans standing trial for allegedly importing 588 kilogrammes of cocaine, yesterday denied that his passport had been seized by another Venezuelan, Vasquez Gerado Duarte David, to ensure that he did not run away with the cocaine.
“Noble Dosu took my passport and if it is not with him then it is with Superintendent Edward Tabiri,” he told the Fast Track High Court through a Spanish interpreter.
The accused person, who is a machine operator, was concluding his evidence under cross-examination by Ms Gertrude Aikins, the acting Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), in the case in which he is standing trial with Italio Gervasio Rosero, alias Italio Cabeza Castillo, a businessman.
They have been charged with conspiracy to commit crime, importing 588 kilogrammes of narcotic drugs without lawful authority and possessing narcotic drugs without lawful authority but they have pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
They have been refused bail.
A third accused person, Vasquez Gerado Duarte David, alias Bude or Shamo, also a Venezuelan, is on the run.
Moises denied that he had come to Ghana to flout the laws regarding the purchase of diamonds, since it was not true that a karat of diamond was sold between $600 and $700.
According to him, that was what he had been told, depending on the quality, and that he arrived in the country to do the diamond business with Dosu.
Asked whether he was aware of the conflict of blood diamonds, the accused person replied in the negative and maintained that he came to Ghana to transact business in diamonds.
Ms Aikins put it to the accused person that because of the conflict of blood diamonds, diamonds in Ghana were only sold at the Precious Mineral Marketing Commission (PMMC) after one had registered and had been issued with a licence but Moises said he was unaware of that procedure.
When the acting DPP told Moises that he never knew Dosu nor had anything to do with him until he met him at the airport, the accused person replied, “I did not know him.”
However, when Ms Aikins suggested to him that Dosu was sent to the airport by Vasquez in order to facilitate his arrival, Moises stated that Dosu was the person he was to deal in the diamonds with.
Moises said on arrival at the airport, Dosu took him through the process of getting a visa and after paying the required fees, he was granted a 15-day visa.
According to him, it was Dosu who invited him to Ghana.
In his evidence-in-chief, Castillo said he was a trader and came to Ghana on November 20, 2005 as a tourist and lodged at a hotel at Achimota which he could not name and said anytime he arrived at Achimota he was able to make his way to the hotel.
He said four days after he arrived in the country, he was walking with some people, including a lady, on a street at East Legon in Accra at about 3.00 p.m. when he saw some policemen and police cars parked near a house.
Castillo said while he was walking, one person he later got to know as a policeman called Commey stopped him and engaged him in a conversation, after which Commey said he had arrested him.
He said after his arrest, he was taken into the house and sent to the second floor but nothing was seized from him, apart from his mobile phone.
According to him, he had his passport and suitcase in the hotel where he lodged but when a friend took the suitcase away, he lost everything, except the passport, which he was prepared to tender in court on the next hearing.
He said prior to his arrest, he had never been to the East Legon house, neither had anyone promised to give him accommodation in that house.