German woman jailed for bringing €100,000 worth of cocaine to Cork

A German woman who brought more than €100,000 worth of cocaine into Cork from Nairobi in the lining of her suitcase was given a five-year jail sentence today with the last three years of the sentence suspended.

Katrin Ruber, 20, of Magdatenenhousser, Wetzler, Germany, stood and cried in the witness box at Cork Circuit Criminal Court and addressed the judge.

“I want to apologise. I have done wrong. I really want to do better. It was the biggest mistake I ever made in my life and I am really paying for it in a foreign country without my family. I want to make my education. I want to start completely anew,” Ruber said.

In response to a question from her senior counsel, Tom Creed, she said the prison officers in Limerick were very good to her but that she was bullied by other inmates of Limerick Prison.

Judge Con Murphy imposed a five-year prison sentence with the last three years of the sentence suspended, backdated to the date of the offence May 20 2007.

Judge Murphy said there were sufficient exceptional reasons in the case to enable him to depart from provisions of the mandatory minimum. He said that there was no doubt from the background reports on Ruber that she was emotionally stunted as a result of a difficult family background where her parents broke up when she was only eleven years old.

Detective Garda John Sheedy said the defendant and her boyfriend arrived May 20 at Cork Airport, Kinsale Road. She had €100,000 worth of cocaine concealed in her suitcase.

Her boyfriend, who was previously given the same jail sentence, had somewhat more drugs in his case.

Det. Garda Sheedy said the couple went to Nairobi for a wedding and were pressurised by people with whom they associated, to bring the drugs to Cork and await phone calls from contacts in Cork about what to do after their arrival.

The detective said he did not think that she would ever be involved in drug-related activities in the future. “It was a costly lesson for her,” he said.