The Kenyan government has succeeded in jailing seven foreigners, who were arrested with a Sh1.3 billion heroin haul in 2014 at the Port of Mombasa.
The matter, which has been in the court corridor for nine years, was on Friday concluded by the Mombasa Chief Magistrate Marth Mutuku.
The foreigners; six Pakistanis and one Iranian were also fined Sh3.9 billion, which is three times the value of the drug haul that was intercepted at the port of Mombasa nine years ago.
Mutuku had last month found Yousuf Yakoob, Yakoob Ibrahim, Saleem Muhammad, Bhatti Abdul Ghafour, Baksh Moula, Pak Abdolghaffer and Muhammed Saleh guilty of the offence of drug trafficking.
Three Kenyans, who had been charged alongside the seven foreigners, were last month acquitted for lack of sufficient evidence against them.
The foreigners were found guilty of trafficking 377.2 kilograms of creamish heroin, and 33,200 litres of liquid heroin aboard a vessel at the Port of Mombasa.
They were also found with 2,400 litres of diesel mixed with heroin on diverse dates between July 2 and 18, 2014, at the Port of Mombasa.
Mutuku had ruled that the evidence and exhibits provided placed the foreigners at the centre of the crime and found that the drugs were carefully concealed inside their ship, which took detectives days to discover.
On Friday, while reading her judgment, Mutuku said if the drug haul had not been intercepted by the Kenyan authorities, it would have had a devastating impact on the youth.
She said she considered the great impact of heroin in the country in jailing the seven foreigners.
The seven were crew members of MV Al Noor, whose destruction in the deep seas was supervised by former President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2014.
The court said the destruction of the MV AL Noor was irrelevant to the trial because it occurred after adequate documentation of the crime scene, drug seizure, and testing.
Last month, the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) asked the court to sentence the foreigners to life.
The Senior Assistant DPP Alexander Muteti also asked the Magistrate Court to impose a fine equivalent to three times the market value of the drugs.
Muteti had then asked the court to take notice of the youths hooked on drug menace, urging the court not to have mercy on the elderly foreigners and ensure they pay the price of their crime.
He told the court that the accused persons deliberately engaged in criminal conduct endangering the country's future generations.
Mutuku on Friday ruled in favour of DPP’s request.
