Freedom in sight for teen drug mules in Ghana jail

Jan 24 2008 by Our Correspondent, Western Mail

TWO British teenagers jailed in Ghana for drug smuggling will be free to come home in less than three months.

Yasemin Vatansever and Yatunde Diya, both 16, were yesterday given nine-month jail sentences by a court in Accra, which includes the time they have already spent behind bars.

Because they have been in prison since their arrest last July they have less than three months of the sentence to complete.

The girls, from London, were held on July 2 at Accra’s airport after officers found 13lbs of cocaine in two laptop bags they were carrying as they boarded a flight to Britain.

A spokesman for the Ghana narcotics board said the girls will be released on April 18.

He added, “The girls get a second chance not to repeat what they did. The message is clear to everybody. Once you do it and get caught you will pay for it.”

He said they will serve the remainder of their sentences at a juvenile detention centre in the capital, Accra.

Asked if the girls might be sent home to England to serve out their time, a British High Commission spokesman said such a move would not make sense.

“The crime was committed here, the trial was held here, and that’s it,” he said.

Officials said the two were recruited in London by drug traffickers who promised them an all-expenses-paid vacation in Ghana in return for serving as drug couriers.

They left for Africa telling their parents they were going to France.

In a statement, the girls’ parents said their daughters had been victims rather than criminals.

“It has been clear that our daughters are as much victims of this terrible [drugs] trade as anyone. Believing only that they were going for a brief holiday to Ghana, they had no knowledge of the real purpose of their visit,” they said.

The statement added, “They were never the masterminds of this operation, yet will bear the consequences. They have demonstrated great courage and character and we know these qualities will be further tested while they serve the remainder of their sentence.

“However, we are relieved that the uncertainty is now over, and we look forward to welcoming the girls home when they are released in April.”

Fair Trials International, which took up the girls’ case, said it was relieved at the relatively light sentence but may still consider an appeal.

Catherine Wolthuizen, the organisation’s chief executive, said, “Given the particular vulnerability of the girls, their lack of any previous criminal record, their youth and their status as pawns in a larger operation, run by other parties who have not yet been caught or prosecuted, it is deeply unfortunate that they, and not the men who lured them to Ghana, are bearing the consequences.”

West Africa is increasingly becoming a transit point for drugs headed to Europe. Cocaine, the majority from Colombia, is brought from South America on small planes and dropped on islands off the little-policed Atlantic Ocean coast, then distributed to couriers who carry it into Europe.

British and Ghanaian officials began collaborating last year after a surge in drug-related arrests at London airports linked to West African flights.