A 22-year-old man who was arrested in September 2015 at the Lanzarote airport will be in the dock next Thursday, December 15, for a drug trafficking crime. In his indictment, the Prosecutor's Office is asking for 6 years in prison and a fine of 116,442 euros for Chukwuebuka David Akwou, a native of Nigeria.
The trial will be held in Arrecife, before the Sixth Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas, and several Civil Guard agents who participated in his arrest, as well as an expert from the area of Foreign Health, will testify in it as witnesses. The events occurred a little over a year ago, when the accused landed on the island from Barcelona, "carrying inside his body 591.86 grams of heroin with an average richness of 35.59 percent", according to the Public Prosecutor, who adds that this drug "would have reached a value of 38,814 euros in the illicit market.
After his arrest, the accused was sent to provisional prison, where he has remained until now. In his indictment, presented last March, the Prosecutor's Office requested that this measure be maintained given "the seriousness of the facts" and the "risk of flight" of the accused. Precisely because of this precautionary measure, he requested speed in holding the trial, which will finally take place next week.
On the other hand, prosecutor Joaquín Manuel Bobillo also claims in his writing that in the event that a conviction is handed down, "the sentence imposed on the accused should not be replaced by expulsion from the national territory", which is an option allowed by the Penal Code but only for certain cases.
The arrest of this young man occurred on September 6, 2015, when upon arriving at the airport his attitude "aroused suspicion" of the Civil Guard. As explained then by the Benemérita, the agents suspected that he could "transport some type of prohibited substance hidden inside his body", so he was subjected to a medical examination. He was later transferred to the Molina Orosa hospital in Arrecife, where he finally expelled 44 capsules of heroin in the form of acorns.
