HAMILTON, Bermuda (AP)
A German convicted of smuggling cannabis resin and cocaine into Bermuda will spend six years in prison instead of four, an appeals panel ruled on Friday.
Jamie Edward Cox, of Altenkessel, Germany, was originally sentenced last December to four years in prison after a jury convicted him of smuggling the drugs with a street value of US$125,000 (euro107,000) into the British island territory. He was acquitted of two other charges of possession with intent to supply.
Police stopped Cox, now 28, at Bermuda International Airport in July 2003 and discovered that he had ingested 66 pellets containing cocaine, crack cocaine and cannabis resin.
Cox claimed at trial that a gang of men forced him to swallow the drugs at gunpoint while he was in Jamaica visiting his sick daughter. He was in transit to Britain when authorities stopped him in Bermuda.
A prosecutor had asked the three-judge appeals panel to increase Cox's sentence to 10 to 12 years, saying the shorter term did not fit the crime.
