Tuesday, June 26, 2007
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NEW YORK (AP) - A federal jury has delivered a mixed verdict in the case of 4 men accused of smuggling a leafy drug called khat to Somali immigrants in Minnesota and Maine.
Jurors convicted 3 of the men of conspiring to distribute khat containing just enough of the stimulant cathonine to make it illegal in the US. Two were also convicted of conspiring to import the drug but acquitted on charges that their actions constituted a continuing criminal enterprise -- a count that could have landed them in prison for 20 years.
A fourth defendant was acquitted on all charges.
Prosecutors portrayed the men as drug dealers -- but defense lawyers argued they were not because the active substance in khat all but disappears within days after it is picked in Kenya and Ethiopia.
Source: AP, June 26, 2007