Accra Dec. 14, GNA - Roger Ocloo, DHL courier, and Ellis Tamakloe, son of Dr Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe, Ghana's Ambassador to Serbia, who are being held for narcotic offence on Thursday appeared before an Accra Fast Track High Court.

The two men, who are facing a joint charge of attempted exportation of narcotic drugs without lawful authority and possessing narcotic drugs without lawful authority, pleaded not guilty. They would reappear on January 15.

Mr Ellis Owusu-Fordjour represented Tamakloe but Ocloo had no counsel.

Mrs Evelyn Keelson, who represented the state, told the court that on August 29 this year, personnel from DHL office at North Ridge in Accra were bagging parcels for shipment when it was detected that shipment no AWB4361050536 was unusually bulky. Mrs Keelson said the attention of the Gateway Operations Supervisor was drawn to this and as part of normal procedure of DHL, the said shipment, which consisted of an envelope, was opened and the content examined.

They found two parcels of compressed dried leaves suspected to be cannabis sartiva in the envelope.

A report was made to the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) and investigations at the DHL office revealed that the shipment was brought in by Ocloo to be sent to an address in the United Kingdom. The prosecution said it was further detected that Ocloo had used a different code route, which was not his route code, ostensibly to cover up.

Meanwhile the sender's address detail bore the address of Friesland West Africa, a company located at airport Residential area, which happened to be a regular customer of DHL. The prosecution said investigation, however, revealed that Friesland was not the sender of shipment parcel.

When Tamakloe was interrogated, he admitted giving the parcel to be sent through DHL. He said the parcel was given to him by one Harry Campbell and he had no knowledge of the content of the parcel. During a search in Ocloo's house a copy of the airway bill covering the parcel was found. An analytical examination by Ghana Standards Board tested positive for cannabis.