Alex Trelinski
BRITISH drug trafficker, Brian Charrington, has got a new trial date after Supreme Court judges quashed his original 2018 trial in March due to ‘impartiality’ issues.
65-year-old Charrington and his son Ray were convicted, along with two other people, of smuggling 192 kilos of cocaine from South America to the Costa Blanca in 2012 and 2013.
All four now have a retrial at the Alicante Provincial Court starting on July 19.
Calpe-based Charrington was originally given a 15-year-jail term and fined €31 million.
One of the defence lawyers in the 2018 hearings, Joaquin de Lacy, appealed to the Supreme Court over ‘conflicts of interest’ involving the Alicante bench judges.
The Supreme justices upheld the challenge on the basis that the judges had previously made 26 rulings on the case ahead of the 2018 trial.
That, in their opinion, infringed the defendants rights to an impartial hearing.
Five other people, including Brian Charrington’s girlfriend, Isabelle Robert, were all acquitted and will not be tried again.
Charrington has been branded by Spanish media as the ‘Wikipedia Narco’ because he regularly posted internet updates on his activities.
In July 2003, a German court jailed him for seven years after convicting him of drug smuggling.
READ MORE THE OLIVE PRESS ROGUES GALLERY OF INFAMOUS FUGITIVES CAUGHT IN SPAIN
