A British jury trying a mechanic accused of taking part in the biggest cocaine case ever seen in Ireland has retired to continue its deliberations today.

YESTERDAY’S record €750 million seizure of cocaine brought the value of the drug netted off the west Cork coast to far in excess of €1 billion in just the last 18 months.

The youngest of the men involved in Ireland’s biggest ever drug-smuggling case was jailed for 10 years today as it was claimed that he ended up in jail because he stayed around to raise the alarm to save the life of a drowning accomplice.

A British man who led authorities to the largest ever-drugs seizure in Ireland was today jailed for 10 years.

A convicted police killer jailed for 30 years for his role in Ireland’s largest drugs seizure appeared in court today in relation to his extradition back to the UK.

FOR the first time in 43 days in court Martin Wanden flinched yesterday — and that was at the moment he heard the sentencing judge say “30 years”.

The three Englishmen who were on trial in the biggest drugs crime in the history of the State have been sentenced today.

IT WAS the image that flashed around the world — a lifeboat crew fishing bales of cocaine from mountainous seas in a remote west Cork bay.

THE EARLY morning knock on the door of an isolated farmhouse in West Cork didn’t only herald the arrival of air-sea rescue helicopters. It led to the biggest drugs case in the history of the State.

IT was a sophisticated international smuggling racket that came to grief off the coast of Ireland because someone didn’t know the difference between diesel and petrol.

The three Englishmen who were on trial in the biggest drugs crime in the history of the State were all convicted by a jury today after a day and a half of deliberations.

The man who was rescued from the water where €440m worth of cocaine was also found claimed today the gardaí thought he was guilty just because he was in the water and that in fact he was on a walking holiday in west Cork where he visited the Buddhist centre and the church at Gougane Barra.

A BOAT sank off the west Cork coast and €440 million worth of cocaine floated in the stormy waters as one man made it to a coastal farmhouse to alert the rescue services that another man was still in the sea.

The opening of the biggest drug trial in the history of the state got underway today with prosecuting senior counsel Tom Creed claiming that the cocaine seized in West Cork last year was found to be 75% pure, giving it a value of €440m and not €108m as originally thought.

THE case of Ireland’s biggest drugs haul will not go to trial until May.

ALMOST 400 witnesses have made statements to gardaí in the case of the biggest drugs haul in Ireland, it emerged in court yesterday.

TIGHT security was the order of the day at Cork Circuit Criminal Court yesterday for the first appearance of four men arrested in the wake of the biggest drugs seizure in the history of the State, which was valued at €107 million.

Four men appeared at Cork Circuit Criminal Court today in connection with the biggest drugs haul in the history of the State.

THE fourth English man charged in connection with the largest cocaine seizure in the history of the State was yesterday sent forward for trial.

LAWYERS for four men charged with the state’s largest-ever seizure of cocaine off the coast of west Cork in July have complained about delays in prosecuting the case.

THE Director of Public Prosecutions was yesterday accused by a judge of using delaying tactics in the prosecution of four men charged in relation to the largest seizure of cocaine in the State.

SECURITY was tight yesterday as all four men charged in connection with the State’s largest cocaine seizure were in court together for the first time.

MORE than 30 gardaí, several armed, cordoned off a courthouse in Cork yesterday as a fourth man appeared on charges relating to the biggest drugs haul in the history of the State.