Drug trial | Colombian jailed for 18 years, fined €20,000

A Panamanian national, Domingo Navas was acquitted of all charges and was freed from arrest.

Sentence was delivered by Judge Michael Mallia at the end of a lengthy trial that was characterised by a series of arguments between lawyers.

Earlier in the afternoon, jurors returned a guilty verdict in respect of Jose Pena, of Columbia. He was found guilty with six votes against three, while Domingo Navas, 33, of Panama, was unanimously declared not guilty of conspiring to traffic in 1.5 kilos of cocaine in 2006.

The two were arrested after 43 year-old Mexican Enrique Martinez Burgoa, was intercepted at Malta International Airport.

Burgoa was made to phone his contacts, asking them simply to “pick up the drugs”.

Pena and Navas were arrested when they went to Burgoa’s hotel room in Sliema even if he had never given them any directions or told them where he was staying.