SKIPPER FREE AFTER COCAINE CHARGES ARE THROWN OUT

THE Icelandic captain - and former Lutheran Minister - thanked God and his
legal team as he walked free from Cork Circuit Criminal Court, yesterday,
when the case against him for conspiring to import cocaine collapsed, and a
Youghal fisherman who pleaded guilty to the same charge was given a 10-year
suspended prison sentence.

John O'Shea (44), 7 Raheen Park, Youghal, Co Cork, pleaded guilty on Monday
for his part in a conspiracy to import cocaine, and Judge AG Murphy imposed
the suspended sentence. However, the media was ordered not to disclose this
decision until the trial of Sigurdur Arngrimsson ended, as it was believed
that such disclosure might have prejudiced the jury in their consideration
of the case that went to trial.

Det Sgt John Healy testified that O'Shea was the cook on the Tia and was
involved in a conspiracy to import cocaine from Surinam in South America to
Ireland. He described O'Shea as "a small cog in a big machine." O'Shea told
gardai he was paid a monthly salary to do the cooking on the voyage.

Judge Murphy said that he would normally impose a custodial sentence on
such a serious charge, but he noted the garda's evidence that O'Shea "tried
to back out," but was under pressure from other individuals. As events
unfolded in courtroom one at the Washington Street courthouse in Cork,
yesterday, the jury was told by Judge Murphy to return a verdict of not
guilty in the case against Arngrimsson from Malmo, Sweden, on the
conspiracy to import drugs charge.

Defence senior counsel Ciaran O'Loughlin, made a successful submission to
the judge that key evidence was inadmissible as Arngrimsson had been
unlawfully detained, following the failure of the gardai and customs
officials to find any drugs on the ship.

Arngrimsson was arrested on November 5, 1996, at Castletownbere, Co Cork,
and Mr O'Loughlin said that he should have been released at 1 p.m. on
November 9. Judge Murphy agreed, and ruled: "That was not done and anything
else that emerged afterwards was inadmissible." The development followed
three days of legal argument, in the absence of the jury, on the
admissibility of evidence.

The court had been told that gardai "were acting on confidential
information that he (the defendant) was involved in drug-trafficking from
South America to Ireland; that alterations had been carried out to his ship
that were not justified; that drugs were concealed on the ship, and that
the ship had gone a long journey without a cargo."

Arngrimsson said he did not trust the Irish legal system until yesterday,
and solicitor Ray Hennessy joked that there were times when the defendant
did not even trust him.

He said that the first time that he worried about the outcome of the trial
was on Monday when O'Shea pleaded guilty.

The former Lutheran priest said that his wife Siggi died six years ago,
yesterday. He believed that she and his mother were both "with me in
spirit," he said, as he wept outside the courtroom.

He said that he saw a good omen during the week at the guesthouse where he
stayed in Cork. "My mother used to feed stray cats. The woman there (in the
guesthouse) was feeding stray cats, too. I knew from that that my mother
was with me in spirit."

Relieved that the trial was over, the 66-year-old defendant plans to return
to Sweden. He said that the idea of drug-trafficking went against
everything he had done in the course of his life.