Kenya’s high court has acquitted a British aristocrat of smuggling cocaine in a shipment of sugar, ending a high-profile case that focused public interest on how the justice system would treat the scion of a prominent colonial-era family.

A stash of 100kg, said to be worth around $6m, was seized from a shipping container owned by the sugar trader Jack Marrian in the Kenyan port of Mombasa in July 2016. Marrian’s colleague Roy Mwanthi was also charged, and his case was also dropped. Marrian, the grandson of a Scottish earl, has always maintained that they were framed. The prosecution applied to terminate the case for lack of evidence, but six weeks ago a magistrate in a lower court refused to drop the charges.

“The court was in essence directing a prosecution against accused persons against the wish of the prosecution, without a complainant and a prosecutor,” the judge, Luka Kimaru, wrote in Thursday’s ruling dismissing the case. “Hugely relieved that after so long the prosecution has had the courage to do the right thing,” Marrian told Reuters. During the trial, the defence team presented a letter from the US Drug Enforcement Administration stating that Marrian, 33, could have had no knowledge that the drugs were stashed in a shipment that was en route from Brazil to Uganda.

The grandson of the sixth Earl of Cawdor, Marrian grew up in Kenya, where his grandfather was a minister in the colonial government before independence in 1963.(theguardian)…[+]

SUZANO, Brazil,  – Two armed men wearing face masks entered a Brazilian elementary school today and shot and killed at least six children who were on their snack breaks, as well as two school officials, before fatally turning their guns on themselves, police said. Ten people, including the gunmen, were killed in total, Sao Paulo police said.

The unidentified gunmen, who appeared to be between 20 and 25 years of age, shot and killed a worker at a nearby car wash before their attack at the Raul Brasil school, police said. More than 1,000 children aged between 11 and 15 attend classes there. Another 17 people – mostly school kids – were shot and injured, and several of them were in serious condition, said police, who were not yet aware of a motive for the violence.Marcelo Salles, commander of police forces in Sao Paulo state, spoke just outside the school and said that in his over three decades of service, he had “never seen anything like this, it was an unspeakably brutal crime.”Salles said the gunmen used at least one .38 caliber pistol, along with homemade bombs and a crossbow. Police arrived eight minutes after the shooting started and did not confront the gunmen, who had already killed themselves, he said.(Reuters)…[+]

Scores of peo­ple hop­ing to get to Mi­a­mi from Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port were get­ting ready to board their flight around 3 pm yes­ter­day when they were turned back and told to leave the de­par­ture gate.

Mo­ments ear­li­er, Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump had ground­ed all Boe­ing 737 Max planes with im­me­di­ate ef­fect, leav­ing those pas­sen­gers who were set to leave for the Unit­ed States at 3.25 pm on Amer­i­can Air­lines flight num­ber 2703 strand­ed at Pi­ar­co. An­oth­er flight des­tined to leave Mi­a­mi for Port-of-Spain at 5.55 pm (on Wednes­day) yes­ter­day, flight num­ber 2713, was al­so can­celled.

To com­pound mat­ters for many of the pas­sen­gers, of­fi­cials were not im­me­di­ate­ly avail­able to clar­i­fy what would hap­pen next, lead­ing to a slight furore at the desk. Po­lice were called in to en­sure that the sit­u­a­tion did not es­ca­late. One pas­sen­ger with a tick­et for the 3.25 flight bought via the miles sys­tem was told to can­cel the tick­et and seek a re­fund. How­ev­er, he like many did not know when they would get an­oth­er flight on the air­line out of Trinidad. He said the next avail­able flight to him was list­ed as March 30.(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]