Four French nationals sentenced to 20 years in Dominican Republic cocaine trial
Four Frenchmen convicted in the "Air Cocaine" case received 20-year prison sentences in the Dominican Republic. The men were arrested in 2013 at Punta Cana with 680kg of cocaine.
Four Frenchmen convicted in Dominican Republic's 'Air Cocaine' trial
A Dominican Republic court sentenced four French nationals to 20 years in prison on Friday for drug trafficking, ynetnews.com reports, closing a long-delayed case known in France as the "Air Cocaine" affair.
Pilot Pascal Fauret, co-pilot Bruno Odos, passenger Nicolas Pisapia, and alleged broker Alain Castany were arrested in March 2013 at the Caribbean resort of Punta Cana as they were preparing to board a Dassault Falcon 50 jet. Dominican authorities found 26 suitcases containing 680 kilograms of cocaine aboard the aircraft.
After ten hours of deliberations, the court found all four men guilty of "the crime of associating to possess illegal drugs." Of the ten Dominican nationals charged with complicity, six were acquitted and four received sentences ranging from five to ten years.
The defendants had consistently maintained their innocence, arguing they were unaware that drugs had been loaded onto the plane. Prosecutor Milciades Guzman pushed back against that claim on Friday, stating the cocaine had been brought to the aircraft "via a hole in the security fence, in the pilots' presence."
Defence lawyer Maria Elena Gratereaux announced she would appeal the verdict.
The case has also drawn scrutiny in France. Investigators there are probing the "suspicious behaviour" of passengers from the same Falcon 50 aircraft following a flight that landed in Saint-Tropez in December 2012, with Fauret, Odos and Pisapia on board. A French customs official is under investigation for allegedly assisting two vehicles in unloading ten suitcases from that plane.
French authorities say two similar deliveries occurred earlier in 2012, and that a third was planned for March 2013 — the occasion on which the four men were arrested in the Dominican Republic.
Source: Google News DM — Crime