Latvian man and Jamaican security guard freed of cocaine charges

Parish Judge Paula Blake Powell on Tuesday freed 31-year-old Rihards Upenieks from Latvia  of drug charges after the prosecution agreed with submissions by defence lawyers that a viable case could not be mounted against the accused.

Upenieks was freed of charges of conspiracy, possession of cocaine, dealing and attempting to export cocaine.

He was arrested and charged in March last year at the Norman Manley International Airport while he was about  to board a flight to London.

Also freed was Terica Millwood, a security checkpoint officer at the airport who was accused of not properly inspecting a package when it went on the X-ray ramp. The prosecution agreed with attorney-at-law Alexander Shaw that there was no case against her.

They were freed in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court.

Surveillance revealed that just before Upenieks was accosted by the police, he received a package from an in-bond store sales agent.

The police searched the package and found cocaine disguised as Jamaican rum.

Upenieks denied having knowledge of the drugs and produced a receipt to prove he had purchased rum from the store.

King's Counsel Peter Champagnie and attorney-at-law Richard Lynch, who represented Upenieks, had argued that the surveillance did not reveal that the accused made a switch with the packet or tampered with it, therefore, the prosecution's case against him could not succeed.

Upenieks had been on bail since March 2023 and was restricted from returning to his native land until the case was completed.

-Barbara Gayle

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