A Ghanaian man charged with importing and possessing more than $100,000 worth of cocaine at street value was found not guilty in the Supreme Court yesterday.

The ten woman two man jury delivered the verdict after hearing a summation from Puisne Judge Ian Kawaley who summed up details of the evidence.

Oshuman Shehu was charged with importing and possessing 344.1 grams of cocaine which he allegedly brought to the Island on October 25, 2003 in the form of 45 plastic pellets. Shehu admitted to swallowing pellets but a main plank of the defence case was that he thought he was carrying gold dust in his stomach and not cocaine.

Earlier in the trial the court heard that Shehu was to deliver what he believed was gold dust to a Det. Constable Devon Richardson at the Hamilton Police Station, and that the gold was for a man named Roger. He picked up the pellets from a Jamaican jeweller friend in Manhattan named Sean Brown who sent him to Bermuda to make the delivery. Shehu also told the jury this week that it was not unusual for him to swallow gold and he had swallowed gold numerous times in his native country.

Defence lawyer Victoria Pearman told the court on Wednesday that narcotics officers bungled their investigation of the case and that they did not check into the information Shehu gave them properly. Crown counsel Oonagh Vaucrossen asked why the defendant did not tell Police officers why he did not tell doctors at the hospital he had swallowed gold dust. Shehu told her that in his native country, Africa, he did not speak unless spoken to, but he was confused when the Police Officer, who he was meant to deliver the pellets to, showed up at the hospital while he passed them out of his stomach.

Yesterday afternoon, Shehu left the Island on board a flight to New York where he currently lives.