Ugandan drug trafficker jailed in Ghana
Kampala- A court in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, has remanded a 53-year-old Ugandan to Ankaful maximum security prison on charges related to drug trafficking.
The country’s anti-drug trafficking agency, Narcotics Control Board (NACOB), said Fredrick Bwogi was arrested on April 25 as he went through immigration clearance in the arrival lounge at Kotoka International Airport in Accra.
The suspect flew to Ghana aboard an Ethiopian Air flight ET 921 via Addis Ababa. At Kotoka International Airport, NACOB’s operatives said they picked him up “on suspicion that he had ingested narcotic drugs”.
The agency said in a statement issued at the weekend that urine samples taken from him and tested “proved positive that he had ingested narcotic drug in his body”.
“Mr Bwogi was later sent to the headquarters of NACOB and placed on observation where within a period of 48 hours [he] expelled sixty-seven (67) pellets. The pellets were field tested and proved positive for narcotic drug,” the statement read.
Drug not specified
The drug was not specified. Bwogi was remanded to prison last week.
Ambassador Nelson Ocheger, Uganda’s High Commissioner to Nigeria, who also oversees countries in West Africa, told Daily Monitor that he had “instructed a staff to follow up on the matter”.
During interrogations, Ghana’s anti-drug agency said Mr Bwogi told investigators that a Pakistani national in Kampala gave him the drugs to deliver to another Pakistani national that he identified as Ahmed.
Once in court, Bwogi changed the accounts saying a Ugandan he declined to name sent him to deliver the drugs to a one Ahmed whom he claimed was a Ugandan resident in Ghana.
Reward
He told court that he was entitled to Shs5.5m ($1,500) commission if he successfully delivered the drugs.
“[Bwogi] added that the person who gave the narcotic drug to him is the same person who purchased his ticket for him to travel to Ghana, adding that [the] receiver of the delivery (Ahmed) was to pay his share after delivering the drug to him in Ghana,” the NACOB statement read in part.
Interpol officials in Kampala said Mr Bwogi is not known in their records among drug traffickers.
Ghanaian laws on drugs
10 years: Ghanaian laws prescribe a sentence of not less than 10 years for any person who is convicted of importing or exporting any narcotic drug without a licence issued by the Secretary for Health. Bail is not normally granted for suspected drug traffickers.
