Ghana delays sentencing of UK drug girls

ACCRA - A court in Ghana on Wednesday delayed until January the sentencing of two British teenagers found guilty of smuggling 6 kg (13 lbs) of cocaine, saying it first needed to consider a social services report on the girls.

Yasemin Vatansever and Yatunde Diya, both 16, were arrested on July 2 at Accra airport. Ghanaian anti-drugs officers said they found cocaine worth 300,000 pounds ($620,000) in laptop bags they were carrying as they boarded a flight to Britain.

The two were found guilty by a juvenile court in the former British colony two weeks ago.

"We are still waiting for the social services report on the girls, so the court has adjourned until January 9," prosecution lawyer Evelyn Keelson told reporters.

The teenagers, who pleaded not guilty, have said they were tricked into carrying the bags by male acquaintances in Ghana and Britain and did not know what they contained.

Police investigators said a Ghanaian man had promised the two 3,000 pounds each and a free holiday if they delivered the cocaine to London.

The teenagers were arrested under Operation Westbridge, a project set up by Britain and Ghana to tackle drug smugglers using Accra airport as a gateway to Britain and Europe.

Officials said they had arrested three more suspected traffickers at the weekend, among them a 35-year-old British-Ghanaian dual national found en route to London with 2.1 kg of cocaine hidden in a suitcase. A Liberian and a Nigerian national were detained separately.

"Three arrests over just one weekend. It shows that the problem still exists and we'd need to do a lot more beyond just arresting the culprits," said British High Commission spokesman Gary Nicholls, who confirmed details of the arrests.

He echoed a judge's call last week for Ghanaian authorities to prosecute a senior police officer who was named by all the accused in another high-profile cocaine smuggling case.

"It is important, especially when some of these (drugs trade) managers are supposed to be the ones who should be enforcing the law," Nicholls said.