A MAN pulled from the sea near where drugs worth €440 million were found off the west Cork coast has denied any involvement in drug smuggling.
Martin Wanden, an English national, told Cork Circuit Criminal Court that he had no involvement in the smuggling of cocaine and only ended up in the water after he went to assist a friend, who told him he had got into difficulty while fishing.
“I am not guilty. I never at any point took any part in what happened. If the police had kept an open mind on this from day one I would not be here, but because I was in the water they thought I was guilty,” said Mr Wanden.
Mr Wanden said he had been spending time in west Cork and was camping near Kilcrohane Pier on the night of July 2nd, 2007, when he got a call from a man called Charlie.
Charlie managed a car sales business in Britain and he had given him his sister’s car to sell. When he rang Charlie in June to say he was going walking in the Lake District, Charlie suggested that he come to Ireland instead and he did, Mr Wanden said.
He added that when Charlie rang him to say that he was in difficulty, he followed Charlie’s instructions and went to Kilcrohane Pier where found a boat with keys. He headed out to sea to try and find Charlie, who was stuck in a cove. “When I gets to the cove, Charlie is there with two other people and when I pull up to the side of the boat, it was full with boxes, and I said ‘What’s going on? And Charlie said ‘Don’t worry, it’s got nothing to do with you’.
“Obviously, something is wrong – the boat is full of boxes – they are obviously not fishing. I said ‘Take me and dump me on the shore’ and he said ‘We can’t, we don’t have time’, ” said Mr Wanden.
He said he got into the boat with the boxes in it and Charlie and one of the other two men got into the boat he had come in, and they sped off, leaving him and another man in the boat with the boxes. “They were persistent – bearing in mind, there were millions of pounds worth of drugs, they weren’t going to wait around,” he said, adding that he asked what was in the boxes, but the other man said he didn’t know.
He managed to get the engines going and headed for shore, but they cut out, so he and the other man jumped into the sea to swim ashore.Mr Wanden said the other boat came back but didn’t come to his aid and headed back out to sea.
Mr Wanden and his co-accused Joe Daly, Bexley, Kent, and Perry Wharrie (48), from Loughton, Essex, deny possessing cocaine for sale or supply at Dunlough Bay on July 2nd, 2007.
The case continues.
