The US Coast Guard inspected a yacht allegedly used in a conspiracy to import cannabis to Bermuda, but found no evidence of wrongdoing, Supreme Court has heard.

Officials were on patrol between Cuba and Haiti amid concerns about an exodus of Haitian nationals due to a rebellion there, First Class Petty Officer Gunner?s Mate Timothy Kerr told Supreme Court on Friday.

His Coast Guard boat, , encountered the yacht, , 23 miles off the northwestern tip of Haiti on February 19, 2004 and an inspection was carried out as part of a mandate to board all vessels entering and leaving Haitian waters.

The trial of the five men accused of the conspiracy had previously heard how a US special agent searched the prior to this date, when it was in Florida.

It is the Crown?s case that George Leonard Lambert, 53, Gladwyn Sherwyn Simmons, 54, Ricardo Michael Tucker, 31, Tristan La-Van Codrington, 30, and Anthony Stanley Martin, 42, had an agreement together to bring drugs to Bermuda.

Crown Counsel Carrington Mahoney has previously told Supreme Court that Simmons went to Florida to purchase the and then flew Codrington and Tucker to Tampa, Florida, to pilot it back to Bermuda.

It is alleged that the yacht left Tampa around February 13, 2004.

It stopped to refuel in South Caicos, and sometime after it left on February 24, 2004, it picked up Lambert and what Mr. Mahoney described as ?the cargo? somewhere in the northern area of Haiti. The Crown further alleges that subsequently ?sneaked? into Bermuda, taking advantage of a tracking system being out of service due to Hurricane Fabian.

The court has heard that when Police boarded the yacht on March 11, they found a piece of Duct Tape with cannabis residue on it.

Police who attended Lambert?s home on March 13 found pieces of Duct Tape which Mr. Mahoney described as ?similar? to that found on the yacht. They also found plastic buckets and an electric saw with cannabis residue on them and a large amount of ?cannabis sawdust.?

Crown witness Mr. Kerr said that when he and other Coast Guard colleagues boarded , they found Tucker and Codrington aboard. It is usual for the Coast Guard to look at the GPS (Global Positioning System) on a vessel during an inspection, he said, to check the route it has travelled. Of his findings on he said: ?Neither the hand held or the other (wall-mounted) GPS had any last tracks on their systems.?

Asked by Mr. Mahoney if this is usual, he replied: ?Not normally. To not have memory is as if it?s been deleted or wiped out.?

He said he asked Tucker about the route the yacht was taking to Bermuda, and why it was going along an ?unusual? route north of Haiti rather than through the Florida Straits between Florida and the Bahamas. Tucker, he said, replied that this route had been recommended by ?the mechanic? prior to departure.

The Coast Guard officer told Shade Subair, defence counsel for Tucker, that the result of the inspection was ?no evidence of wrongdoing?. Miss Subair also quizzed Mr. Kerr on the Bermuda Triangle, putting it to him that two lines he had drawn on a map to illustrate the usual route to Bermuda from Florida and the one the was taking, formed the top two lines of the triangle. Mr. Kerr said this was correct.

Next witness for the Crown was Benson Smith, senior immigration officer for the Turks and Caicos islands, who was in charge of immigration on South Caicos in February 2002. He spoke of how he noticed in Seaview Marina there on February 22 and also noticed ?two strange men? on the island ? who he later came to know as ?Ricardo and Tristan?.

He told them they were in violation of the immigration rules and that they should return to their vessel. He also spoke of finding their route ?unusual?.

Lambert, Simmons, Tucker, and Codrington, all of Sandys Parish and Martin, of Jamaica, all deny conspiring together with others to import cannabis between February 1, 2004 and March 11, 2004.

Lambert denies separate charges of possessing cannabis with intent to supply and possessing equipment for the preparation of a controlled drug. He has pleaded guilty to possessing cannabis and possessing equipment for preparing a controlled drug.

The case continues today.