A convicted drug trafficker has failed to overturn a ruling ordering him to give up almost $1 million in personal assets.

Two years ago, a judge ruled that Kirk Roberts would have to concede his 50 percent share in a house and land at West Side Road, Sandys — worth $926,531 — which was deemed to be the spoils of his criminal activity.

Roberts, a former powerboat champion, was sentenced to ten years in jail in 2002 for conspiring to import cannabis worth $1.4 million to Bermuda.

In an appeal hearing earlier this month, Roberts' lawyer Frank Phipps QC argued that the hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act had not followed correct procedure. However, the appeals judges yesterday upheld the assets ruling against Roberts, who is currently on parole.

During his cannabis conspiracy trial, his accomplice gave evidence and claimed 200lbs of cannabis was collected in St. Vincent and passed to Roberts when he was taken out to sea in December 2000 in a boat called the Sea Scorpion III to rendezvous with a sail boat off Bermuda carrying the package of drugs.

The Crown, lead by former Director of Public Prosecutions, Kulandra Ratneser, originally claimed that Roberts benefited to the tune of about $2 million from trafficking. However, Roberts' solicitor, Kamal Durrant, argued in court that his client never made any money from crime and Roberts' wife had said she couldn't understand how assets could be seized when there was no evidence anyone had gained. It was understood that he felt Police were out to get him after rumours about his activities. The cannabis conviction was his first.

Meanwhile, two men convicted of murdering the Cooper twins failed yesterday in a bid to have their names cleared.

Kenneth Burgess and Dennis Robinson were jailed for life in 2006 for killing Jahmal and Jahmil Cooper in March 2005. Burgess was said to have beaten the 20-year-old twins and bludgeoned them with a metal baseball bat at his apartment in Crown Hill Lane, Devonshire, in revenge for them allegedly robbing his father.

The prosecution claimed Robinson guarded the door to prevent escape and then helped Burgess to dispose of the bodies 80 feet down Abbot's Cliff in Hamilton Parish.

Their skeletal remains were discovered a month later.

Among the points argued by barristers representing the men at their November 2007 appeal, were that the evidence of two key witnesses in the trial, Devario Whitter and Gladwin Cann, was unreliable. The lawyers asked for fresh evidence in the form of sworn statements from the pair to be produced.

It was further argued that Chief Justice Richard Ground erred in his conduct of the trial.

However, the panel of three appeal judges dismissed the appeal during a brief hearing yesterday morning.

A separate bid by Burgess and Robinson to have their sentences of a minimum 15 years reduced will be heard at a later date.

In a separate case yesterday, a man convicted over a vicious machete attack, which left his victim maimed, also saw his appeal dismissed. Harron Lee Powell Evans and Akono Shakir Parsons were found guilty in November 2006 of wounding Kuma Smith with intent to do him grievous bodily harm.

Mr. Smith had a finger chopped off in an ambush in Devonshire in January 2005.

Evans asked the Court of Appeal to quash his conviction, with his lawyer, Victoria Pearman, arguing that trial judge Norma Wade-Miller mishandled the case. Parsons did not appeal. The appeal judges dismissed Evans' attempt to have his name cleared yesterday morning.