A British nursing student was sentenced to forty months in prison by a Brussels court after customs officers discovered nearly 10 kilograms of cocaine in her luggage.
The 20-year-old landed at Brussels Airport on 23 August, returning on a flight from Liberia. Customs officers inspected her suitcase and found nine packets of cocaine totalling 9.9 kilograms.
The public prosecutor stated that the woman claimed she had visited the family of a friend in Liberia and accepted their offer to pack her luggage before departure. She was allegedly instructed not to open her suitcase afterwards.
However, investigators found messages on her phone suggesting she had received instructions to pass through customs in a larger group to avoid scrutiny.
The prosecutor further argued that it was implausible for a criminal organisation to entrust drugs worth €1 million to someone unaware of their presence.
The defence maintained that the student was innocent, asserting she had travelled to Liberia with a friend to visit the friend’s family and had been exploited without her knowledge. They stated that the family packed her suitcase to allow her to enjoy her stay until the last moment.
The defence requested acquittal or, failing that, a suspended sentence, stressing that the student was pregnant at the time of her arrest but suffered a miscarriage while in detention, causing her immense guilt.
The court rejected the defence’s arguments and imposed a forty-month prison sentence on the woman.
