DRUG MULE, 76, HOME SOON

A retired Kingston teacher who confessed to smuggling more than $1 million
worth of cocaine into the U.S. could be back in Canada within a few weeks,
according to U.S. border officials. Ed Shaw, who was convicted last June in
Louisiana of acting as a drug mule for Belize drug dealers, was paroled
last month and now faces deportation to Canada.

"He will be returned to Canada as quickly as possible, in weeks rather than
months," said Virginia Dabbs, a public affairs officer with U.S. Customs
and Border Protection in New Orleans.

"We're simply removing his right to remain in the U.S."

The 76-year-old man is being held at the Orleans Parish Prison in New
Orleans, where he's being housed in a section reserved for prisoners
involved with immigration issues.

Time Served

Although he was sentenced last year to seven years in prison for his role
in the drug smuggling scheme, Shaw was released only eight months after his
conviction due to credit given for time served in pre-sentence custody.

Shaw had been travelling in a two-vehicle convoy in October 2001 when
Louisiana state police found cocaine and weapons in the other vehicle.
Friends and family insisted he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

His supporters raised $20,000 for his legal bills and established a website
professing his innocence, a defence they maintained despite his guilty plea
last summer.

But during his testimony at a co-accused's trial last September, Shaw
admitted to being a drug mule, saying he was curious about the workings of
the drug trade and its effects on poor Central and South American countries.