The trial of a Dutch national charged with importing $200,000 worth of cocaine to Bermuda is reaching a climax after both the Crown and defence finished their closing arguments in court yesterday.

Eddy Frankyln Filiciana was stopped by Customs officials as he tried to enter Bermuda on December 20, 2001. A search of his luggage and body showed nothing illegal, however when an ion scan was run over his hands cocaine was detected.

Filiciana was taken to the hospital, where X-rays showed he had what later turned out to be 90 pellets of cocaine inside his stomach. He is charged with importation and possession with intent to supply.

Filiciana claimed that he believed the pellets contained money, not cocaine.

Earlier he told the Supreme Court that after being in a clinic in the Netherlands for stomach ulcer, stress, and attempted suicide he was in financial trouble. So, he said, when a friend known as "Chamo" and a mysterious Bermudian known as "Mr. X" approached him about smuggling $200,000 out of the Netherlands to Bermuda, with the promise to pay Mr. Filiciana $8,000 on his safe arrival in Bermuda, he accepted.

Before closing arguments yesterday, Crown counsel Charmaine Smith finished her cross-examination of Filiciana.

There was evident frustration in the courtroom with the language barrier between the Dutch defendant and the court as Ms Smith went over the inconsistencies in Filiciana's story.

She pointed out that, in his original statement to Police, Filiciana never mentioned a Mr. X, and said the man who arranged the importation was in fact Chamo, who Filiciana was having a gay relationship with.

Relying heavily on a translator, an increasingly frustrated Filiciana told the court he lied because he wanted to accept all the blame in order to quickly free his sister, who was travelling with him to Bermuda.

Through the translator, he denied that Mr. X was imaginary, describing him as: "Black, and not fat. He told me his name but I don't remember because I only saw him once. It's true, why would I lie?"

When Ms Smith asked if Filiciana had gone on any vacations during the time he was in the clinic, he replied that he went to Curacel twice and Aruba twice, however not for vacation.

"It had to do with my sickness," he said. Two of those therapeutic trips were paid for by the government hospital. The other two, he said, were paid for by his brother.

During re-examination by his lawyer Patrick Doherty, Filiciana suddenly broke down crying as he said one of the trips paid for by his brother involved the death of his mother and her property in Aruba.

Filiciana told the court due to his stomach problems he never would have put that amount of cocaine inside him, and that he would have expected drugs to come into the Netherlands from the Caribbean, not to the Caribbean from the Netherlands.

"You seem to know a lot about the drug trade," said Mr. Warner.

"It is a simple case," said Ms Smith in her closing argument. "It's been one of the strangest cases I've ever prosecuted in that the Crown and defence pretty much agree on the evidence.

"The issue is what was in his mind: what did he know, what did he suspect, what should he have suspected.

"Thankfully that is a role for you to decide, not me."

Mr. Doherty agreed knowledge was the main issue. Drug dealers, he argued, will not attempt use someone who is "sophisticated".

"With all respect, this man is a mess," he said. "He's the perfect candidate, the kind of person who could be conned in such a way.

"You must have a doubt."

Mr. Warner adjourned court for the day. He will begin his summation of the case for the jury this morning.