The British aristocrat accused of trafficking £4.7m worth of cocaine into Kenya has been confronted in court with the 100kg haul of class A drugs.
Jack Marrian, the grandson of the sixth Earl Cawdor, appeared visibly distressed as 90 packages of the drug were displayed at his trial in Nairobi.
Marrian, 31, was arrested in July after Kenyan police seized the huge shipment of cocaine inside a container of Brazilian sugar at Mombasa port.
The sugar trader, who attended a prestigious Kenyan school with the British cyclist Chris Froome, has maintained his innocence.
The sugar and cocaine were packed at Port of Santos in Brazil then shipped to Kenya via Valencia, Spain.
Spanish police and the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which tipped off Kenyan authorities, believe the drugs were destined for the European market but they were not off-loaded in Spain as planned.
Marrian and his clearing agent, Roy Mwanthi, were arrested and charged after their names were seen on shipping documents.
On the second day of the trial, Marrian rocked back and forth and held his head in his hands as the 100kg shipment was opened by Nairobi’s top narcotics police officer, Hamisi Massa.
Wearing surgical gloves and using a carpet cutter knife, Massa cut open a series of the packages removing an outer layer of shrink-wrap to reveal a strip of coloured nylon and a Lacoste clothing brand sticker, complete with crocodile logo.
After the third brick was opened Mwanthi asked to leave the room because the fumes were making him feel “a bit funny” while Marrian was handed a dust mask.
Marrian’s defence lawyer, Andrew Wandabwa, attempted to pick holes in the prosecution’s allegation that Marrian was the owner of the cocaine, as well as the sugar.
While cross-examining Massa, the defence lawyer drew the court’s attention to the presence of a duplicate seal found inside the shipping container along with the cocaine.
Wandabwa said this was “the hallmark” of a style of smuggling known as “rip-on, rip-off”, whereby cartels place their illicit cargo inside a legal consignment shipped by an unwitting owner.
“Would you agree the smoking gun, as far as the owner of the drugs is concerned, is that unused seal?” Wandabwa asked.
“Probably, yes,” Massa replied. “People could be using the transactions of others to transact illegal business without the knowledge of the owner.”
Marrian, whose full name is Jack Alexander Wolf Marrian, was born into the famous line of Scottish nobility known as the Clan Campbell of Cawdor. His mother, Lady Emma Campbell of Cawdor, runs an upmarket interior design firm on the outskirts of Nairobi.
Campbell told the Guardian in August that the family were “baffled” by his arrest and that his innocence was “palpable and obvious”.
