Accra, July 11, GNA - A Venezuelan who is being tried in connection with the 588 kilogrammes of cocaine deposited in a house at Mepeasem, East Legon, Accra, on Wednesday denied renting a room in the said house. Italio Gervasio Rosero a.k.a. Italio Cabeza Castillo, 38, a businessman told the Fast Track High Court that he was jogging at the East Legon when one Commey a Policeman beckoned him to enter the house. Rosero said as soon as he entered, he was picked by the Police, adding that nobody offered him a house at Mepeasem and he knew nothing about the drugs found there.

Rosero is standing trial with Moises Joel Meija Duarte Moises, a 35-year-old machine operator and are being held for conspiracy to commit crime, importing 588-kilograms of narcotic drugs without lawful authority and possessing narcotic drugs without lawful authority. They have pleaded not guilty and have been remanded into police custody by the Court.

The third Venezuelan, Vasquez Gerado Duarte David, a.k.a. Bude or Shamo is at large.

Opening his defence Rosero, denied that the boxes of cocaine retrieved from Mepeasem belonged to him. He said on November 20, 2005 he arrived in Ghana for a tour and as such stayed at a hotel which he could not recall its name at Achimota.

According to Rosero, he was in the company of one lady and one Marko whom he jointly went out for jogging at East Legon. Led by his counsel, Mr Kwablah Senanu, Moises Rosero said he had never been to the house at Mepeasem until the day he was arrested. He said when he was searched nothing was found on him except a paper with some telephone numbers and a mobile phone. Rosero said his passport was with Marko, adding he could produce it at the next adjourned date.

The case of the prosecution is that on November 24, 2005, a team of detectives from the Headquarters of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), acting upon a tip-off that there was cocaine in house Number 348 at Mepeasem in Accra, went to the house where they met Moises.

Moises was arrested and he led the Police to his upper room where three bottles of ammonium used to turn cocaine into crack, a machine used in compressing the cocaine, 13 pieces of gloves and a quantity of plastic wrappers were found.

The Prosecution said brown cellulose tapes, a filtering bottle used in filtering and sniffing cocaine, an exercise book used in recording the names of people who had purchased and those that had been supplied with the drugs and two cell phones were also found. The Case was adjourned to July 13.