Three men were yesterday charged with importing 78 bars of cannabis resin weighing in at almost 20 kilogrammes after being arrested on a boat in Xemxija Bay on Wednesday morning.

Godfrey Gambin, 34, and Libyan nationals Nabil Ibrahim Saleh, 38, and Adel Mohamed Babani, 45, pleaded not guilty to importing, conspiring to traffic and being in possession of the drug which denotes it was not for their exclusive use.

The police had said they received a tip-off that drugs were being brought in through Xemxija.

Meanwhile, the Justice Ministry yesterday congratulated the police and Armed Forces for the seizure – the largest drug haul this year.

The haul, together with a five-kilo cannabis discovery in February, meant that in the first six months of the year, the police have seized more cannabis than the amount caught throughout 2009, Justice Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici said.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici thanked the police for their hard work in the fight against drugs. Last year, he added, some €5 million worth of drugs had been removed from the streets.