Police chief: We have NO proof British aristocrat smuggled cocaine into Kenya
Explosive letter set to herald the end of two-year drugs ordeal
A BRITISH aristocrat embroiled in a £4.5 million cocaine smuggling case believes he may finally be cleared after a police chief admitted there was nothing to connect him to the drugs.
Jack Marrian, 33, the grandson of the late Earl of Cawdor, was arrested in July 2016 after a raid on a shipping container carrying sugar for the commodities firm he works for in Kenya.
Since then he has been caught up in a labyrinthine legal process and could face a 30-year sentence if convicted by a Nairobi court.
Marrian has always insisted he knew nothing of the drugs and now has high hopes that his ordeal may soon be over.
The US Drugs Enforcement Agency (DEA) has supported him with strong evidence that the cocaine had been loaded on board the container in Brazil by an international cartel entirely without his knowledge.
And a pivotal hearing in Nairobi last week proved to be disastrous for his accusers, ending with the return of his previously confiscated passport by the magistrate.
During a five-hour cross-examination, Corporal Sheila Kipsoi, the chief investigating officer for Kenya’s police anti-narcotics unit, was forced to admit that she and her team had never questioned the original supplier of the Brazilian brown sugar which was loaded on to the MSC Letizia on June 10, 2016. The ship left Santos in Brazil to head for Valencia.
They also never questioned the company which stacked the sugar into the containers, nor the transporters who took it to the docks.
Kipsoi – the main prosecution witness – said she had no idea where the sugar had been stored while awaiting s hi pping, and whether that store was guarded, nor who had loaded the containers on board.
Close to tears, Kipsoi agreed with Marrian’s lawyer, Andrew Wandabwa, that there was nothing whatsoever to connect Marrian to the consignment of cocaine.
Asked if Marrian could have had any physical contact with the consignment or any responsibility for it at any stage, she answered: ‘No.’
Kipsoi broke down in tears – forcing magistrate Derrick Kuto to adjourn the proceedings until she recovered – after she was handed a letter from the DEA virtually proving Marrian’s innocence.
The document was addressed to the director of Kenya’s Criminal Investigations police department several months ago and spelled out the details of an international drug- s muggling operation its officers had been monitoring. Kipsoi sobbed as she claimed she had never seen the letter before, despite agreeing that it was dated just days after Marrian was charged and appeared to have been sent to her team at the Kenya police anti-narcotics squad.
The MSC Letizia had been under DEA surveillance as it left Santos, and members of the drugs gang involved were expected to offload the cocaine as the ship docked in Valencia.
But something went wrong with the criminals’ operation and four of the shipping containers were instead hurriedly transferred to the MSC Positano heading to Oman then on to Mombasa. Kenyan port police, tipped off by the DEA, impounded the four containers on July 28, 2016, and found the cocaine inside one.
The DEA letter – obtained through America’s Freedom of Information laws – has always been considered by Marrian’s lawyers to amount to his complete exoneration. The redacted letter stated: ‘The DEA would like to stress that there was no indication the cocaine was to be received by anyone in Kenya or Uganda and that the company owning the consignment had no knowledge that the cocaine was secreted inside their shipment of sugar.’ Melvin Patterson, the DEA’s spokesman in Washington DC, went further, telling The Mail on Sunday that this letter should be made available to Marrian ‘to help establish his innocence’.
Marrian was later handed back the passport he had forfeited as one of his bail conditions, and a date was set for submissions from his lawyer that there was no case to answer.
His ordeal started when he was arrested during a night-time raid on his home and told that 99.9kg of cocaine – Kenya’s biggest ever haul – had been found in a shipping container addressed to his sugar- trading company Mshale Commodities. He spent several days in a cell with prisoners accused of murder while waiting for bail to be posted.
Yesterday Marrian told The Mail on Sunday of his relief at the return of his passport and of his hope of an acquittal.
‘I’m looking forward to seeing the faces of my friends and family who have provided so much support over the past few years,’ he said.
‘ I’m relieved to know that the international community is now able to see what I have known all along, and I look forward to the conclusion of the case.’
‘Everyone can see what I’ve known all along’