Judge denies bid to suppress evidence in `swallower’ case

A federal judge in Bangor denied a request Wednesday to suppress evidence that led to a Ugandan woman being charged as an international drug “swallower,” or courier.

Ruling from the bench, U.S District Judge Morton A. Brody said that Mariam Kabaseke’s constitutional right to privacy wasn’t violated after she was removed unconscious last November from a KLM flight en route from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to New York City and taken to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.

Brody concluded that the U.S. Customs officers who handled the matter had sufficient “reasonable suspicions” to monitor Kabaseke, who later passed about 92 balloon packets of heroin.

“All the officers … acted reasonably under the circumstances,” said Brody, after hearing testimony from several witnesses. “I can’t think of anything they did that was improper.”

The judge observed that the first responsibility of the officers was to see that Kabaseke received medical attention. The woman clinically died three or four times while on the KLM flight, and two doctors on the flight had to administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation, according to a court document.

“At the same time, they did not abandon their responsibility and duties …,” said Brody. “The evidence just accumulated in significant proportions as they went along.”

The case involving Kabaseke is believed to be the first of its kind in Maine. Kabaseke, 33, of Kampala, Uganda, faces a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison on multiple heroin charges if convicted as charged.

During the hearing, several Customs officers took the witness stand and described how they first thought the flight’s emergency stop in Bangor was because a passenger was having a heart attack. A New York Customs officer warned them, however, that the KLM flight was “a dirty flight” that frequently carried drug couriers, they said.

Customs Inspector Robert Duddy said that while he was waiting outside Kabaseke’s room at EMMC’s emergency room, a nurse approached him, saying, “She’s (Kabaseke’s) loaded … Then she showed us the X-ray” and pointed out “the various things in her (Kabaseke’s) stomach.”

Kabaseke’s attorney, Amy Faircloth of Bangor, said that she was disappointed with the ruling. Asked if she expected the case to go to trial, Faircloth said, “I have to discuss that” with her client, who could agree to enter a guilty plea.

“Based on fact and the law, that was the result we expected,” said James McCarthy, assistant U.S. attorney.

Faircloth had argued that the Customs officers violated Kabaseke’s right to privacy by looking at the X-ray and monitoring her passing of the packets while at EMMC. The officers didn’t have sufficient reasons to think Kabaseke was a drug swallower, and they shouldn’t have gone to the hospital, she said.

McCarthy said that no constitutional violations occurred. The Customs officers “were doing what they had a right to do where they had a right to do it,” he said, adding that Kabaseke hadn’t formally cleared Customs when she was taken to the hospital.