Nurse: I refused to pay their corruption money

An Irishman held in the Philippines for alleged drug offences spoke yesterday of his ordeal at the hands of a corrupt legal system that has forced him to remain there under effective house arrest for the past two years.

“I refused to pay their corruption money,” said Eanna Ó Cochláin, a 55-year-old psychiatric nurse from Cork.

In July 2013, he was convicted of smuggling 0.38g of cannabis through Laoag International Airport. He is convinced the drug was planted on him by corrupt police officials.

“When I got to the airport, things seemed different. All the officials were staring at me,” Mr Ó Cochláin told Brendan O’Connor on RTÉ radio. “I was searched three times, unlike everyone else. I had Old Holborn rolled cigarettes with me. The guards were not familiar with it.”

Mr Ó Cochláin was arrested and brought to the local police station where he believes his cigarettes were switched to marijuana joints. “I have 27 years’ experience as a nurse, so it’s ludicrous to think someone with six years’ education would step on an international flight with 0.38g of marijuana.

“About two days later I was told ‘if you don’t pay up you will be found guilty’. They were threatening to give me 25 years if I did not pay them around €7,000 to €10,000. I refused to pay their corruption money, because the problem is they can still lock me up even if I do pay. If I pay, it’ll make every Irish citizen a target.”

Mr Ó Cochláin was tried in a regional court where he says that video evidence exonerating him was ignored. He is currently on bail but his passport has been confiscated.

“I knew if I paid that, they’d still want more money and they’d still put you in jail. I also learned that my attorney had contacted my wife in London and asked her to pay 200,000 pesos [c. €4,000] and told her I’d be found not guilty if she did. She paid it, and I was still found guilty,” he said.

More than 65% of legal cases in the Philippines are resolved by under-the-counter payments.

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