A German national who imported cocaine and cannabis resin into Bermuda deserves longer than the ?manifestly inadequate? four-year prison sentence handed to him last year, said Crown counsel Graveney Bannister this week.

Mr. Bannister was addressing the Court of Appeal, in the hope of getting the sentence handed to Jamie Edward Cox increased to between ten and 12 years, which the Crown argued would be more appropriate.

Cox, of Altenkessel, Germany, was convicted by a jury in October last year of importing cocaine and cannabis resin to Bermuda.

He was acquitted of the two other charges that he faced of possessing these drugs with intent to supply.

He was handed the four-year jail term by Puisne Judge Charles-Etta Simmons in December.

The jury at the trial had heard how Cox, now aged 28, was stopped by Police Narcotics Department officers at Bermuda International Airport on July 20, 2003 after arriving on a Continental Airlines flight.

It was later found that he had ingested a total of 66 pellets of cocaine, crack cocaine and cannabis resin with an estimated street value of $125,750.

Cox had claimed at his trial that he has been forced to swallow the drugs at gunpoint by a gang of men he met while visiting his sick daughter in Jamaica. He claimed he had no plans to stay in Bermuda and was merely en route to the UK when detained.

Mrs. Justice Simmons said at the sentencing hearing that Cox was entitled to be treated as an ?accidental importer? because the jury had been satisfied that he was on his way to England via Bermuda.

She also noted that the jury was satisfied with the account of events that had unfolded in Jamaica.

Mr. Bannister told Appeal Court judges Justice Austin Ward, Justice Sir Anthony Evans and Justice Sir Charles Mantell that it had been wrong for Mrs. Justice Simmons to treat the claim that Cox had no plans to stay in Bermuda as mitigation.

He said the sentence handed to Cox should have been a longer ?deterrent? sentence and that the importation of drugs should be treated the same as possession with intent to supply.

Charles Richardson, for Cox, said his client had been handed ?a very carefully-crafted sentence, to fit the circumstances of this case and which was not manifestly inadequate?.

He argued that Cox had been forced to take the drugs to Bermuda under the threat that he and his daughter would be killed by the gang of men who had made him swallow them.

He had planned to hand himself over straight away to the British authorities when he arrived there, and he had not intended to supply the drugs to anyone, said Mr. Richardson.

?This defendant should not be treated the same as the average intentional trafficker. He made a choice to get on the plane but did so under exigent circumstances,? he told the court. ?No one would truly be outraged by a sentence of this range once they understood that there was no intent to introduce these drugs into society.?

Cox is due to be released from prison and deported within the next four months, having served nearly two thirds of his sentence including time in custody after his arrest.

Increasing the sentence at this stage would therefore cause him hardship, added Mr. Richardson.

The judges retired to consider their decision, which they will deliver at a later date.