A Highland aristocrat’s son, charged with trafficking cocaine in Kenya, has spoken for the first time since his arrest and claimed he was a fall guy for drug dealers.
Jack Marrian, whose mother is Lady Emma Campbell of Cawdor, daughter of the late 6th Earl of Cawdor, is currently out on bail.
The 31-year-old sugar trader was previously held in jail in Kenya after being remanded in custody following a court hearing in August.
In his first interview, he has vigorously denied hiding cocaine worth millions of pounds in a shipment of sugar for the commodities company of which he is a director.
His trial is due to take place next month. But Mr Marrian is reported as saying: “Despite the prosecution taking swift action in charging me and taking me into custody, I know there is no question I am innocent. There is no possibility of proving me guilty.”
In prison, he experienced a crowded concrete cell with no windows and where he dreaded violence from other inmates.
His ordeal began at the end of July when Kenyan police and United States Drug enforcement officers found £4.5million worth of cocaine packaged in dozens of polythene-wrapped bricks.
They were hidden among bags of sugar en route to his company, Kenyan importer Mshale Commodities, a subsidiary of London-based ED&F Man for which he has worked for the last seven years.
The shipment to the port of Mombasa had originally come from Brazil and then docked in Valencia, where Spanish police provided the tip to their counterparts in Africa, which led to the high-profile bust.
Mr Marrian said: “I heard the news of the bust. It was obviously something quite serious.”
However, he argued that an independent agent inspected and sealed the 22 containers on the ship before they left South America.
He maintained he had no contact or control over four containers, which were subsequently sent ahead to Oman – one of which contained the drugs.
A spokesman for his company declared they had no doubt he would be exonerated.
His lawyers said he was a “fall guy” and that the Kenyan authorities were under pressure to make an arrest and had failed to pursue those who would have had access to the containers during the journey.
Mr Marrian added: “You can’t know anything as vehemently as you know your own innocence.”