Alex Trelinski
THE retrial of British drug trafficker, Brian Charrington, started in Alicante on Monday(October 18).
His original 2018 trial and conviction was quashed by the Supreme Court in March due to issues over impartiality.
Judges upheld the challenge made by a defence lawyer that the same court had previously made 26 rulings on the case ahead of the 2018 hearing.
65-year-old Charrington and his son Ray were originally convicted, along with three others, of smuggling 192 kilos of cocaine from South America to the Costa Blanca in 2012 and 2013.
Five other people, including Brian Charrington’s girlfriend, Isabelle Robert, were all acquitted in 2018.
The drugs were brought into Altea on yachts along with fake identification papers.
Calpe-based Charrington was originally given a 15-year-jail term and fined €31 million.
The first day of testimony in the retrial saw Charrington refuse to answer prosecution questions.
He did reply to his defence lawyer to deny that any involvement with drug smuggling and that he worked in construction.
Lawyers of all five defendants also asked the court to throw out wire-tap recordings.
Prosecutors have called for Charrington to be jailed 18 years; 14 years for his son Ray; and terms of between 12 and 17 years for the other three defenders.
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, and he also spent two years behind bars in France.
Image Credit: Policia Nacional
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