Source: Nation.co.ke
The people that knew him, couldn't believe that a committed church official in his home country could, not just deal in hard drugs, but swallow 79 cocaine capsules so he could ferry them to China is a fact most of his congregants at his church are struggling to understand.
Two of his close friends at the church, think it is the hard economic times that he was going through that might have pushed him into the murky world of drug dealing.
He was very broke and jobless. He had rent arrears, not to mention school fees to pay,said a friend, in an interview on Thursday.
Perhaps the most devastated person is his wife, aged 39, who has had to take menial jobs to make ends meet.
Since his arrest in Guangzhou on November 25, 2018 after he alighted from an Ethiopian Airlines flight, his tough life has got worse.
Him and his wife have three children: boys aged 21 and 14, and a 12-year-old girl. We are living only by the grace of God. We sleep hungry on some days. He was our only hope, his wife told the source by phone on Thursday.
Sounding broken, his wife said: I didnt know what he was going to do in China. When he went silent, I kept looking for him, with my efforts bearing little fruit. Never mind that I could hardly raise the fare to go to government offices.
Then she received a call from the Foreign Affairs ministry informing her that her husband had been arrested.
The foreigner in question, would later be sentenced to life imprisonment by the Chinese Intermediate Peoples Court of Guangzhou Municipality.
OUTREACH
A three-judge bench headed by Hu Peng dismissed his defence that he had unknowingly swallowed the drugs which were detected in his stomach through an X-ray scan.
They ruled that he was trafficking a substance that is extremely harmful to society. Had the cocaine weighed more than a kilo, he would have been sentenced to death.
Court documents tell a story of a man who met a network of traffickers, notably a woman called "Thursday" (alias). She helped him get a passport, paid his visa fees and bought him a return ticket to China.
She then arranged a meeting with the people who gave him food then had him swallow the capsules, with instructions that he should not eat anything during the 12-hour flight. At the end of the deal, would have earned a mere $2,050.
His friends stated that he was part of a group known to help new members of our church when they face challenges.
FAILED ATTEMPT AT A SUCCESSFUL & NORMAL LIFE
His friend revealed that in 2018, they both tried their hands at selling sweet potatoes but the business did not do well, so they closed it.
He was going through some difficulties. I believe thats what somebody took advantage of, said his friend.
Whoever was behind that took advantage of the situation and he fell prey to it, he added.
One of his last engagements with his church was a burial they attended in his home country.
There was no change in his behaviour, nothing to show that he had joined a bad group, he friend recalled.
The plea by his friends and family to authorities from their home is to bring him home to serve his jail term if they cannot negotiate his release.
OK, its a crime, a very serious crime. But it would be better if the our government could find a way of having people like him, who are jailed in foreign countries, brought back home to serve their sentences where their families can at least see them, his friend said.
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