A Latvian man who defended himself in a drugs trial was yesterday jailed for conspiring to import three kilos of cocaine.
Only coffee and paracetemol were found in the false bottom of his suitcase when Janis Boruss, 31, was searched at Malta International Airport after landing two years ago.
But the prosecution maintained that these were cutting agents for cocaine, arguing that he intended to import the drug and only found out about the coffee and paracetamol during the case.
Addressing the jurors as he took the unusual step of representing himself, Mr Boruss said: “I was arrested for cocaine, interrogated for heroin and am standing here before you for coffee.” However, the jury reached a guilty verdict by eight votes to one after deliberating for an hour.
The accused stood emotionless as he was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment and fined €30,000.
Mr Justice Michael Mallia praised him for presenting his own case, pointing out that this was first time it had happened in his memory.
Mr Boruss, who has a two-year-old child in Latvia, had argued there was no evidence against him.
Besides, he was inebriated when giving his statement to police after drinking for two days.
“I was not thinking,” he said, of his admission to police that he imported what he thought was cocaine. He said he had been an alcoholic for the past 10 years, something that he was “ashamed of”.
He claimed he “simply” invented the story as he had been “brainwashed” into saying it. “If someone properly brainwashes you, you even believe that the Germans won the Second World War,” he said.
“There are no victims here, no witness and no evidence. As I lay in my prison cell, analysing the court proceedings, I realised there was no evidence against me.”
Prosecutor Elaine Mercieca Rizzo told jurors it was “unlikely” that he was drunk when he made his statement, as all the police officers and customs officers who took to the witness stand concurred that he was sober.
They also said that he looked agitated, nervous and suspicious when he was handling the suitcase.