The jury in the trial of suspected drug courier Anna Formanchuck is expected to be sent out today to reach a verdict.

The Canadian stripper denies importing $93,000 of cocaine inside a set of golf clubs on July 5 last year and possession of the drug with intent to supply.

Formanchuck, 22, of Toronto, said Bermudian Alphonso Caesar, known as Bumpy, asked her in June of last year if she would take drugs into Bermuda and she claimed she said no.

On July 5, she said she met Mr. Caesar in Atlanta and took a set of golf clubs from him on a flight to Bermuda, but denied knowing they contained cocaine. The golf bag and clubs were seized at Bermuda International Airport on July 5, taken to Police headquarters and Formanchuck was allowed by Police and Customs to go.

On July 8, Customs returned a set of clubs and bag to Formanchuck at the Airport and escorted her through US Immigration and Customs to allow her to board a flight to Atlanta. The accused denied the clubs were hers, but took them, but US authorities then escorted Formanchuck off the plane.

Bermuda Police and Customs officers took her to Police headquarters at Prospect where the clubs were cut open and found to contain cocaine. In closing arguments to the jury yesterday Crown counsel Graveney Bannister said they should have no problems convicting Formanchuck based on the evidence.

But Formanchuck's lawyer Elizabeth Christopher said there were big gaps in the prosecution case and no certainty that the clubs returned to her client were the ones seized three days earlier.

And she said it was a "frightening" scenario of how Formanchuck came to be charged with possessing the drugs when the clubs, which had not been properly identified, had been out of her hands for three days. Mr. Bannister said having brought in the bag and clubs, Formanchuck - under Bermuda law - was assumed to have known the drugs were inside. Formanchuck was aware that four weeks before coming to Bermuda, Mr. Caesar had asked her in Toronto if she was interested in bringing drugs to the Island.

A receipt was written for the golf bag, which was inside an outer travel bag, when it was seized on July 5 but an x-ray proved inconclusive and Formanchuck was allowed to leave the Airport.

Formanchuck had lied to Customs, saying she got the bag from her stepfather. "Why would she lie?" asked Mr. Bannister.

"Common sense says that if someone asks you to bring something to Bermuda and you have suspicions - are you going to hold onto it?" asked Mr. Bannister. "It is only when it comes to the crunch that she creates distance. The Crown has presented a convincing, credible and consistent case from witnesses who have shown you beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant committed these offences."

Formanchuck's lawyer Ms Christopher said: "My client says that she did not know the clubs contained the drugs. There is no evidence that these clubs that the Government analyst (Christine Quigley) opened on July 8 are the same clubs that came in on July 5. No evidence whatsoever."

She said the Crown had identified the golf club bag, which was inside a travel bag, but had not identified the clubs themselves.

"Can you be sure that the bag on July 5 contained the same clubs as the one on July 8? Of course not," she said.

"You should find the scenario very frightening. You bring in clubs for a friend. No one says to the defendant there is something wrong with these clubs.

"They are examined (at Horizons) on July 7. No one says anything is wrong with the clubs. On July 8, after the clubs have not been anywhere near you, you are given the clubs back. She (Formanchuck) can't say they are the same clubs. She has never seen the clubs. At 3 p.m. (on July 8) for the first time in evidence Det. Sgt. Small decides to detain my client (at the Airport).

"What prompted him to do that? He does that after the clubs are taken to the Airport (and given to Formanchuck). Don't you find that frightening?

"You haven't had the clubs for three days then the drugs come out of the clubs. The clubs are examined twice and there is no intention of stopping her from leaving on that plane and then at 3 p.m. they decide to make a stand."

She said her client was an "exotic dancer" who came to Bermuda to do a show and did not know the drugs were inside the clubs.

Even if her client came to a realisation on July 6 (after making enquiries of Mr. Caesar) that there were drugs, this did not mean she knew this the day before when she brought in the clubs, said Ms Christopher.

She said Mr. Caesar told her client in June 2002 that "they put stuff in stuff" - a reference to drug smuggling.

"Do you really think a person that gives you a warning would put the drugs in? It was a warning not an invitation," she said. "It is not for me to explain the weird circumstances and strange behaviour at Prospect.

"(This is) the same Police that arrested people for a murder that didn't happen a couple of months ago.