Legal arguments yesterday halted the drugs trial of five men accused of conspiring to import cannabis into Bermuda after detailed testimony on Monday by a Police detective about his role in a house search.

Crown witness Det. Con. Walter Jackson was cross-examined by defence lawyers about the early-hours search of George Leonard Lambert's property in Somerset.

Lambert, 53, along with Gladwyn Sherwyn Simmons, 54, Ricardo Michael Tucker, 31, Tristan La-Van Codrington, 30, and Anthony Stanley Martin, 42, are jointly accused of the conspiracy.

This is alleged to have involved the yacht picking up what Crown counsel Carrington Mahoney has described as "the cargo", somewhere in the area of Haiti during a trip from Florida to Bermuda.

The trial has already heard how Det. Con. Jackson's role was to take notes as the search progressed in March 2004.

He described a bucket found in the cellar that contained bags with plant-like material inside, and also a Garmin hand-held Global Positioning System (GPS) found in a kitchen drawer.

A silver and yellow machine saw with plant material on the blade was recovered in the bedroom of a resident of the property named Kwesi Hollis, Det. Con. Jackson added.

Shade Subair, for Tucker, said when Police searched Lambert's Scaur Lane property they were looking for any evidence that might be linked to a boat that was part of a Police cannabis investigation.

No link had been found before the search of Lambert's house, Det. Con. Jackson told the court.

Miss Subair stated that the hand-held GPS was a "major link" between the boat and Lambert. She said it was common practice for a suspect to be questioned about an item recovered in a search when it is discovered, and asked why Lambert was not asked about the GPS when it was found in the kitchen.

Det. Con. Jackson, who described the GPS find as a "link", said it was normal practice only to ask on the spot questions about recovered drug items.

Miss Subair added: "You yourself never saw any hand-held GPS system being taken or discovered from the kitchen of George Lambert's house?" The witness replied: "That's not true".

She also asked why the model name of the GPS, Garmin, was not in the narcotic officer's notes, but was in his statement taken six months after the search.

Det. Con. Jackson said he asked an officer working on the investigation ? the name of whom he could not remember ? about the model before making his statement.

He later told the court he did not recall seeing Garmin on the device, and could not be sure of its exact spelling.

Under repeated questioning, the officer had earlier admitted speaking to the officer who found the GPS, Det. Con. Ihab Azab, as well as all other officers involved in the Somerset search, before making his witness statement on the raid.

Elizabeth Christopher, for Lambert, asked the officer: "When you came to make your statement, at various points you just simply made things up and filled in blanks."

The officer denied this suggestion ? and rejected claims that Lambert was not with him during the entire search.

Ms Christopher said Lambert was not in earshot when Hollis said the saw had been placed in his bedroom by Lambert two days before the raid. Det. Con. Jackson replied: "He (Lambert) was present."

Charles Richardson, for Martin, asked why the officer took such a detailed note of the saw, but not of the GPS. The officer said this was because the saw appeared to have cannabis on it.

The lawyer also questioned why the tracking device was not found in the kitchen during the first search.

However, under re-examination by Crown counsel Mr. Mahoney, Det. Con. Jackson said the first search was carried out by the Police drugs dogs. The second was a physical search carried out by hand.

Lambert, Simmons, Tucker and Codrington, all of Sandys, and Martin, of Jamaica, all deny conspiring to import cannabis between February 1 and March 11, 2004.

Lambert denies separate charges of possessing cannabis with intent to supply and possessing equipment for the preparation of a controlled drug. The trial continues.