A date has been set for the trial of nine men accused of smuggling £500 million of cocaine in a boat in the North Sea.
The MV Hamal was intercepted by Royal Navy frigate HMS Somerset and Border Force cutter Valiant about 100 miles east of Aberdeen on April 23 this year.
It is alleged the ship had sailed from Istanbul, Turkey, to a number of north African countries between February and April, before travelling from Tenerife to the North Sea where it was stopped.
At the time, police believed it to be the UK's biggest class-A drug seizure.
At a hearing in the High Court in Glasgow today, the accused - Kayacan Dalgakiran, 63, Mustafa Guven, 47, Mustafa Ceviz, 54, Umit Colakel, 38, Ibrahim Dag, 47, Mumin Sahin, 46, Emin Ozmen, 50, Abdulkadir Cirik, 31, and Muhammet Seckin, 26, - who are all from Istanbul, maintained not guilty pleas to a charge of being "knowingly concerned in the carrying and concealing of a controlled drug".
A trial date of April 4 in Glasgow next year was set with a judge to be appointed to the case.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article