Pubdate:  Tue, Aug 31 1999
Source: Guardian, The (UK)
Copyright: Guardian Media Group 1999
Contact:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Author: Nick Hopkins, Crime Correspondent

COCAINE MULE TAKEN FOR RIDE ON DREAM TRIP HOLIDAY

Rana Khalifa was in two minds about the offer of a 10-day holiday to
Jamaica from a friend, Stephanie Cox.

She felt a little uneasy about the surprise gift, though she had lent
her money and offered moral support during her divorce. But her real
concern was leaving work at short notice.

After talking to her mother and her employers at Cover Shots, a
photographic agency in London's West End where she worked as a pounds
30,000-a-year PR manager, she accepted.

In Jamaica, Khalifa agreed to carry some bottles of duty-free rum on
the return flight because she did not intend to buy any alcohol for
herself. She and Cox were stopped at customs at Heathrow late on
December 13, 1997. The bottles, which were sealed and in two boxes,
contained cocaine with a street value of pounds 260,000.

Five months later, both women were convicted at Isleworth crown court
and jailed for 11 years.

Khalifa, 25, had no idea she was being used as a "drugs mule" or that
Cox had friends in Jamaica who were cocaine dealers. She assumed Cox,
who is in her 40s, was innocent until other prisoners told her she had
confessed.

This is just Khalifa's version of the story, but she had never been in
trouble with the police before and she might have served her sentence
by now if she had confessed before the trial. If she admitted
involvement in drug smuggling today, she would be released on parole
after six years.

But Khalifa will not admit to something she did not do. "Being found
guilty of a crime you did not commit is like having all your insides
and your spirit ripped out. This started as a horrific nightmare and
has become my cold reality. I've got to fight on and hope that someone
will come forward with some evidence to prove what I am saying."

Khalifa does not fit the profile of a mule. According to customs and
excise, smugglers are normally unemployed, in some sort of financial
difficulty and have a criminal record. It is a risky business - one in
10 get caught.

Customs officials have little sympathy for those who plead ignorance,
saying it shows barely credible naivete in an age when travellers are
constantly reminded not to carry anything which belongs to someone
else.

But the Howard League for Penal Reform, which estimates there are
2,000 drug smugglers in English and Welsh jails, says the sentences
can be unnecessarily harsh.

"The justice system is waging a very simplistic war," said Frances
Crook, its director. "Often, these people are pawns. Long sentences
create more victims and they do not get to the international criminal
element who are behind the trafficking. Drug smuggling is a very
foolish thing to do, but couriers suffer disproportionately."

Khalifa accepts that if she had harboured any suspicions before the
flight and said nothing, she would be culpable. She maintains she was
duped.

According to Khalifa, she met Cox when they were neighbours in
Battersea, south-west London, seven years ago. It was a slightly odd
relationship; Khalifa, then 19, says she was the sensible one, while
Cox was something of a lost soul - her marriage was falling apart and
she had had a series of failed relationships. The call about the
holiday came in late October 1997 at a time when their friendship had
cooled. "I think the rest of the money from the divorce had come
through and she said she wanted to say thank you to me for all the
support I had given her and to apologise for the times she had not
made an effort to see me.

"At first, I said no. But I changed my mind after speaking to people
at work. My mother encouraged me to go. I had never been to Jamaica
before. She said I couldn't pass up such a wonderful opportunity."
Khalifa claims Cox, who had a Jamaican boyfriend, asked her about the
duty-free allowance halfway through the holiday as they sunbathed by
the swimming pool of their hotel in Montego Bay.

"It was said in a very casual way. I hardly ventured from the hotel,
but Stephanie had been out several times to meet people. It didn't
occur to me that she was plotting anything."

Cox allegedly told Khalifa the two boxes of rum needed to be ordered
and collected at the airport because they were flying home in the
evening when the duty-free shop was closed.

Khalifa claims she did not see the bottles until Cox presented her
with a case in the airport concourse and admits she willingly took her
share on board.

At Heathrow, they were stopped as they walked through the green
channel. Both boxes were on Cox's trolley.

Khalifa says she was chatty with the officer who searched their
luggage, showing a brochure of the hotel where they had stayed, and
was helpful when he inspected one of the bottles.

When Cox was asked whose rum it was, she said it belonged to both of
them. The women were allowed to go, but arrested as they loaded their
luggage into a taxi.

"I presumed they had made a mistake and they had got the wrong people.
I was tired and a little confused, but I wasn't nervous. I thought we
would be out within minutes."

The women were charged jointly and both claimed they knew nothing
about the cocaine when the trial started.

The prosecution alleged it was a carefully organised plan, though
there was no supporting evidence. Summing up the prosecution case,
Judge Durrant said: "[They] say no organiser bringing into this
country drugs with a street value of pounds 260,000 would allow those
drugs to be placed in possession of anyone other than a courier."

Shortly after their arrest, Khalifa claims Cox broke down in front of
her at Holloway jail, crying: "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."

"We couldn't go into court pointing the finger at Stephanie, because
she could have turned round and blamed me.

"I was cross-examined for a few minutes and Stephanie was
cross-examined for several hours. I think that says a lot about who
the crown prosecution service believes was responsible for all this."

Her solicitor Desmond Wright is trying to persuade a woman who shared
a cell with Cox to make a formal statement, but she has not been in
contact since she left prison.

"This woman said Stephanie told her I knew nothing about the drug
smuggling," said Khalifa. "It might not be enough to free me, but it
would be a start." 

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