Cops fail to find swallowed cocaine pellets

Source: Cops fail to find swallowed cocaine pellets – DailyNews Live

Tarisai Machakaire      5 July 2017

HARARE – A South African woman arrested on accusations she had ingested
cocaine has applied for acquittal saying she spent days in police custody
expelling stool but cops failed to find the alleged swallowed pellets of
the drugs they claimed she smuggled from Brazil.

Isaura Masinga, 40, of Germistone, South Africa, entered Zimbabwe on May 5
and was confined to police custody and charged with possession of cocaine.

Masinga went through a series of ultra sound and CT scans as the State
sought to establish if she carried cocaine in her stomach.

Nothing was established. An order was further given for her bowl movements
to be monitored as she remained under guard.

The State failed to establish if Masinga possessed the cocaine and changed
the charges to defeating the course of justice after claiming she had
destroyed the evidence.

“The accused person was kept under close monitoring by at least two police
officers who would thoroughly sift through her human waste or urine in the
toilet after she would have helped herself,” Masinga’s lawyer Nickiel
Mushangwe said.

“The female police officers would be right there with her in the cubicle
watching her every move and it was very degrading for her to be watched
while defecating but she endured it all.”

Prosecutor Peter Kachirika claimed Masinga defeated the course of justice
by avoiding solid food while in police custody and only began doing so
after being transferred to remand prison.

But Mushangwe said: “The food served there is pathetic and she has never
seen anything like that being fed to human beings in her life.

“However, it would not be correct that she avoided solid food because I
brought her food and she would also buy some.”

Prosecutor Kachirika urged the court to put Masinga to her defence.

“She decided to secretly excrete the body packs without police knowledge,
thus defeating the course of justice.

“The accused person also lied to the police that she was pregnant to avoid
further conclusive tests conducted on her.

“Her behaviour clearly shows that she was hiding something,” Kachirika
claimed.