Family's anger as Kenyan court refuses to drop drugs case against earl’s nephew

Fight for justice: Jack Marrian was charged with trafficking £4.5m of cocaine
Reuters
Benedict Moore-Bridger5 February 2019

The family of a Scottish aristocrat charged with smuggling cocaine worth £4.5 million into Kenya today spoke of their anger after a magistrate’s refusal to allow the prosecution to drop charges against him.

Jack Marrian, 33, the Earl of Cawdor’s nephew, was expecting his 30-month ordeal to end last week at a hearing in Nairobi that his lawyers regarded as a formality after prosecutors withdrew their case.

But presiding magistrate Derrick Kuto made the unusual decision to block the acquittal, insisting the case against Mr Marrian and co-defendant Roy Mwanthi should continue, accusing prosecutors of an “abuse of the court process”.

Neither man is in custody. Mr Marrian’s aunt Liza Campbell told the Evening Standard today how they were “stunned by the cruelty of this latest twist”.

She said: “We hope Jack and Roy will be granted a hearing at the High Court as soon as possible so they can appeal this highly counterintuitive ruling.

There is no evidence against either man; the only evidence exonerates them both as the intercession of the Department for Public Prosecutions attests.”

Mr Marrian is the son of Lady Campbell of Cawdor, daughter of the late Hugh Campbell, the sixth Earl Cawdor. The family estate is 14th-century ­Cawdor castle near Nairn in Scotland.

He attended Marlborough College where the Duchess of Cambridge went to school.

He has worked for the international commodities trader ED&F Man for the past 10 years and in 2014 was moved to oversee their subsidiary company Mshale in Kenya.

His nightmare began in May 2016, when Mshale ordered 24 containers of sugar from Santos, Brazil, to import into Uganda via Kenya.

Mr Marrian was arrested after Kenyan police and US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officials in Mombasa found 100kg of cocaine in the containers.

However, prosecutors acknowledged that neither man should have come to trial. The DEA, which had been tracking the cocaine, also wrote to their Kenyan counterparts stating unequivocally that Mr Marrian knew nothing about the stowed narcotics.

Sources close to the case said Mr ­Marrian had fallen victim to a smuggling ploy used by gangsters working for the Italian Ndrangheta crime syndicate.

They said the gangs use what is known as the “rip on rip off method”, with drugs “piggybacking” on the back of bona fide shipping containers.

Once the cargo arrives in Europe, smugglers cut through the container hinges to remove the doors without breaking the seals, placing the drugs in the container along with two new seals.

Sources said the DEA and Spanish authorities had hoped to catch the gang in Valencia, but the raid was unsuccessful.

The only reason Mr Marrian was arrested was because he had signed the import papers. Mr Mwanthi was in charge of overseeing the safe arrival of the sugar in Mombasa.

Lady Campbell said: “While living under the terrible strain of these false accusations, both men have consistently conducted themselves with dignity and respect for the proceedings. We are grateful to ED&F Man for standing full square behind them and we are confident justice will be served.”

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