A 21 year old British man who flew to Thailand on holiday is facing a minimum ten-year sentence in Turkey after nearly 20 kilogrammes of cannabis were found in his suitcase at Istanbul airport, with the accused claiming he was blackmailed into carrying the bag without knowing what was inside.
Taylor Johnson, from Wednesbury in the West Midlands, was detained at Istanbul’s airport on April 26 along with his 21 year old girlfriend, Holly Cooper of Coseley, also West Midlands, as the pair transited through Turkey on their return from Thailand.
Customs officers discovered 19.2kg of cannabis packed into 17 vacuum-sealed bags inside Johnson’s luggage. Nothing was found in Cooper’s bag.
Both were arrested and held in separate prisons pending a court hearing at the Gaziosmanpaşa criminal court in Istanbul. The judge accepted Cooper’s account that she had no knowledge of the drugs, released her, and said she did not need to return to Turkey.
She has since flown back to the UK. Her lawyer, Bilgehan Berk, said he expects the case against her to be dropped. Johnson was remanded in custody.
The prosecutor asked the court to convict both defendants of manufacturing and trafficking narcotic or psychotropic substances, a charge carrying a minimum sentence of ten years. Neither defendant has any prior criminal convictions. Johnson is due to be sentenced in July.
Speaking through an interpreter at his court hearing, Johnson told the judge he had been coerced into carrying the suitcase after becoming entangled in a car crash abroad. He said the other party involved in the accident obtained his personal details and, roughly a week later, began threatening him and his family, demanding £3,000 (approx. 131,000 baht).
When he said he could not pay, Johnson told the court, the man instructed him to travel to Thailand and bring back a suitcase to the UK, describing it as a specially designed bag. Johnson said he did not know it contained drugs.
He invited Cooper to join him on what he presented to her as a holiday, and she paid for her own ticket.
Johnson told the court that on the final night in Thailand, a man came to their hotel and left the suitcase at reception. He collected it without opening it. He said he only learned the contents when he was stopped in Turkey.
“I apologise. Had I known that the suitcase contained drugs, I would never have done such a thing,” he told the court.
Cooper corroborated the account that she believed the trip was a straightforward holiday. She told the court she had no knowledge of any coercion and, when asked why she had not questioned Johnson about arriving with a different suitcase, said she assumed his original bag had been damaged during the trip and that he had bought a replacement.
Berk, whose firm represents both defendants, told British media that Johnson’s statement was credible but that the physical evidence created a near-certain path to conviction regardless.
Johnson is currently held at Maltepe Prison in Istanbul alongside around 15 other British nationals in a dormitory housing 40 foreign inmates. Earlier reports suggested he had been assaulted inside the facility, but Berk said there had been no violence and that Johnson was managing because he was not being held alone.
Following sentencing, Berk said he intends to apply for Johnson to serve any custodial term in a UK prison.
A family friend described Johnson and Cooper as having been targeted by a trafficking network, and said both families were struggling with the situation. Johnson has a GoFundMe campaign running to help fund his legal defence.
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