Freetown — Two Kenyan citizens have been accused of trafficking cocaine after luggage they were carrying whilst boarding a Kenyan Airways flight was found to contain large quantities of the drug, a Freetown court heard yesterday.

Foumba Ayoba Sherriff and Moussa Diallo were boarding a Freetown flight to Nairobi when police became suspicious and apprehended them after they had passed through security, said Jonathon Sayo, an aviation security officer at Lungi Airport.

Sayo was the operator of the passenger baggage x-ray machine and he said he observed the bags were suspicious after seeing them on the monitor.

"I stopped the conveyor belt and alerted Constable 1459, Zainab Bobor Kamara and Bashiru Conteh to put it in the searching table for it to be searched in the presence of the owner," he said.

Sayo said after the suspicious bag was discovered, no one came forward to claim the it and minutes later a similar parcel appeared. "Again I observed another suitcase with the similar image," he said. "I then instructed the officers to search the suitcase." Sayo said he asked Kamara and Conteh to move the luggage to the boarding gate in order to identify its owners, at which time they noticed the two men boarding the Kenyan Airways flight.

He told the court that the two suspects were taken to the supervisors officer, then to the Lungi Airport police.

Sayo said he visited the police station and identified the parcels and the following day made a statement to police. The trial will continue in Freetown next week.