By Paul A. Reid, Staff ReporterWESTERN BUREAU:
A ST. James man in whose basement the police said they found a stash of drugs with a street value of more than $40 million, was offered $10 million bail with strict reporting conditions, when he was taken before the Montego Bay Resident Magistrate's Court yesterday.
If he takes up the bail offer, Glenford Williams will have to report to the Area One Narcotics office, Montego Bay, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. Also, he was ordered to surrender all his travel documents and a "stop order" was placed against him at the two international airports, preventing him from leaving the island.
In addition, Resident Magistrate, Valerie Stephens, ordered that the one or two sureties authorised to bail him must report to court with him each time the case is called up.
Williams was arrested after the police, with a search warrant, went to his home in Latium district on April 17. They searched his house and came upon loose floorboards which led them to a trap door to a basement. In a search there, the police said they found in 20 packages weighing 100 lb., white powdery substance resembling cocaine and 85 lb. of what appeared to be hash oil, a derivative of ganja.
In his application for bail for Williams, attorney-at-law Roy Fairclough, who with attorney-at-law Hugh Thompson is defending the accused, said that he had no knowledge of the drugs, as he was a recent occupant of the house.
Mr. Fairclough said that his client did not build the house or had any input in its construction and had no knowledge of the basement.
The police went to the house only after they were given instructions by someone else who had been arrested on similar charges by overseas drug agents, Mr. Fairclough said.
The case will next come up in court on May 27 by when forensic certificates relating to the exhibits, should be ready.
