possession of liquid cocaine were heard in Supreme Court yesterday.

Clifton Hopeton Morrison, 39, of St. Anne's Parish, arrived in Bermuda on February 4 of last year and was found to have two bottles of rum which contained some $300,000 worth of liquid cocaine.

He said he was given the bottles by a man he knew only as Jabba and did not know they contained illegal narcotics.

Crown counsel Larry Mussenden said: "The real issue is knowledge.'' He noted that the cocaine was in liquid form and could have been processed into crack cocaine or cocaine powder and been sold for between $90,000 and $330,000 on the street.

Meanwhile defence lawyer Victoria Pearman said her client should be acquitted because of a lack of evidence.

"You must acquit him, You have to acquit him.'' She called Morrison a good man and said he was not a trained drug mule as the prosecution would like to have portrayed him.

"People tell lies for all sorts of reasons,'' she said.

This is the third trial for Morrison.

A year ago this month he was found guilty of the charges and received a 12-year jail sentence but successfully appealed against conviction.

A retrial was ordered and began in March, but had to be cut short when a jury member was excused and Morrison exercised his legal right to be tried by a 12-person jury.