The prosecution in the €440m cocaine trial was attacked as speculative, remote, fixated and incorrect as lawyers for two of the defendants made their closing submissions to the jury today.

The lawyer defending one of the men in Ireland’s biggest ever drugs case said today it was absurd to think that a brick-layer and family man from England could be involved in a drug crime on the scale that one would associate with the notorious Colombian drug baron Pablo Escobar.

One of the men on trial in the biggest drugs case in the history of the State had no inkling that drugs were being imported until he saw white packets floating in the sea on the morning in question.

THREE Englishmen have pleaded not guilty to charges relating to the seizure of more than €100 million worth of cocaine off the coast of west Cork last summer.

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.