A man who swallowed 19 bags of heroin has had his conviction for possession with intent to supply quashed by the Privy Council.

Law Lords allowed an appeal by Anthony Eugene Seymour because they said any intent to sell the drugs in Miami, US, meant this was outside the jurisdiction of laws in Bermuda.

Seymour's conviction has now been classed as possession, the maximum sentence for which is five years. This morning he will hear whether his sentence of 13 years will now be reduced at the Court of Appeal.

Seymour, represented by Craig Attridge before the Supreme Court and in the Court of Appeal, was jailed in March 2004 for possession of $518,180 worth of heroin, but appealed his conviction for intent to supply at the Court of Appeal. He claimed he had not planned to sell the heroin in Bermuda but in Miami.

Appeal Court judges however, refused the application, and this week the case was heard by the Privy Council, Bermuda's highest court.

Law Lords heard that he was admitted to Accident and Emergency at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital on March 14, 2002, with high blood pressure and a "racing" heart. Seymour told medics he had swallowed 19 bags of heroin and surgeons removed 18 pellets containing 112.8 grams in two operations. It also emerged that he had booked a flight to Miami.

Lord Justice Phillips of Worth Matravers, in delivering the Privy Council's ruling, said: "He went to hospital because he was taken ill as a result of one pellet escaping from its wrapping. It was the prosecution case that he intended to take the drugs to Miami and then sell them."

Seymour, of Pembroke, was convicted of possession of a controlled drug with intent to supply under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1972.

Lord Phillips said: "The issue raised by this Appeal is whether a person who has possession of unlawful drugs in Bermuda with the intention of supplying them to another commits an offence under section 6(3) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1972 when the act of supply is intended to take place outside Bermuda and therefore outside the jurisdiction of Bermudian courts.

"The following submissions were made to the trial judge, to the Court of Appeal and to their Lordships on behalf of the Appellant. The prohibition imposed by section 5(1)(b) (of the Misuse of Drugs Act) on supplying or offering to supply a controlled drug to another is implicitly restricted to acts within the territory of Bermuda.

"The implication arises because of an overriding principle that the laws of Bermuda are only of territorial effect."

Lord Phillips added: "Section 6(3) makes it an offence to have a controlled drug in one's possession which is intended for supply in contravention of section 5(1). The intention of the appellant was to supply in Florida. Such supply would not have been in contravention of section 5(1) because it would have taken place outside the territory of Bermuda. It follows that no offence was committed under section 6(3)."

He said that the original trial judge had not directed the jury that "there was any territorial restriction on the place of intended supply".

Then in the Court of Appeal, Lord Phillips said that Judge Evans JA, in refusing Seymour's appeal, had said "if necessary we would hold that 'supply' in section 5(1) is not limited to 'supply within Bermuda', notwithstanding the presumption that an Act of the Bermudian legislature does not have extra-territorial effect".

Lord Phillips said: "On this analysis the appellant was guilty because he committed the unlawful act of possession of the drugs within Bermudian territory with the intention of performing outside that territory an act that was, by section 5(1), rendered unlawful under Bermudian law albeit not, of itself, a criminal offence."

He said that the Court of Appeal judgment reasoning therefore "violates the scheme of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1972".

"Turning to subsection 5(1), the prohibition of producing or supplying a controlled drug proscribes only production or supply in the territory of Bermuda. The presumption against extra-territorial effect applies to the subsection.

"Evans JA said that the court would 'if necessary' find that the presumption did not apply to subsection 5(1), on the ground that the subsection did not create a criminal offence.

"Their Lordships do not follow this reasoning. The presumption against extra-territorial effect is not restricted to provisions creating criminal offences. Nor does it make sense to approach the meaning of subsection 5(1) in isolation. It is an integral part of a section that does create a criminal offence."

Lord Phillips said: "The judge's ruling on the submission of no case to answer on count 2 and his direction to the jury in relation to that count were unsound. The appellant's conviction must be quashed.

"The use of the words 'if necessary', which their Lordships have emphasised above, suggests that the Court of Appeal considered that it was necessary, in order to give coherence to the Misuse of Drugs Act, to extend the effect of subsection 6(3) to circumstances where the intended supply was outside the territory of Bermuda. That is not the case.

"Sections 4 and 10 together adequately cover the activities of someone who commits acts in relation to a controlled drug within Bermuda with the intent of supplying it outside the territory. Had the appellant been charged with contravention of section 10 he could properly have been convicted of an offence carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

"It does not follow that a conviction for doing an act preparatory to exporting a controlled drug in contravention of section 10(2) should be substituted for the appellant's conviction on Count 2 pursuant to section 22(2) of the Court of Appeal Act 1964.

"No charge under section 10(2) was ever intimated against the appellant. When he admitted possession of a controlled drug in the course of his trial he did so when facing two counts, to each of which he was in a position to make a valid submission of no case to answer. It would not be just to rely upon that admission to found a conviction under section 10(2). In these circumstances, the appropriate course is to substitute for his conviction on Count 2 a conviction for possession of a controlled drug contrary to section 6(2) of the Misuse of Drugs Act.

"Accordingly their Lordships will humbly advise Her Majesty that the appeal should be allowed, that a verdict of possession of a controlled drug be substituted for the jury's verdict on Count 2 and that the matter be remitted to the Court of Appeal for determination of the appropriate sentence."