Trial by jury of Englishman found with 14 kilos of pills starts

The trial by jury of an Englishman found with than 14 kilos of pills hidden between panels of his Mitsubishi Pajero in 2006 started this morning.

Steven John Lewis Marsden is being charged with conspiring to deal in ecstasy. He had appealed this charge saying that the drugs he imported were not illegal at the time but the Court of Criminal decided to leave the decision up to a jury.

Originally, Mr Marsden had been charged with importing 28 packets of 50,000 ecstasy pills embossed with the Lacoste crocodile logo and trafficking in the drug.

But these two charges were dropped when evidence produced during the compilation of evidence showed that the pills did not contain MDMA, a drug found in ecstasy, as was at the time listed in Maltese drug laws, which have since been changed.

Police Inspector Norbert Ciaparra testified this morning that the police found the pills following a 10-hour search.

When the drugs were found, Mr Marsden told the police that stupidity, financial problems and pressure from third parties led him to make the drug run.

Court expert Mario Mifsud said that MCPP, the street name of which was ecstasy, was the main component of the pills. Research, he said, has shown that the drug was non habit forming and not harmful. It had similar effects to MDMA, also known as ecstasy. Its street value at the time was Lm5 (£11.65) to Lm7 (€16.31). Its production cost was not more than 58 euro cents.