A man accused of importing $302,000 worth of liquid cocaine is set to learn his fate today when a jury is sent to consider its verdict.

Edward Shawn Dill, 40, denies knowing the drug was stashed in bottles in a bag that he brought in on a flight from New York last August.

He has suggested to the jury that he was victim of a plot, possibly involving a Bermuda-based drug trafficker. He denies importing the drug and possessing it with intent to supply.

Finishing evidence in his own defence yesterday, Dill explained he was on vacation in the US with his friend Jamel Wilkinson when he got a call on his cell phone from a man identifying himself as "B".

Dill said he recognised the voice as belonging to a man he'd been introduced to by Mr. Wilkinson who he knew as "Mainey". He said Mainey asked him if he would bring a "package" back to Bermuda for him and he assumed he was referring to drugs.

Dill, of Sunset Lane, Pembroke, told the jury he refused to assist with this, despite the caller offering him $5,000, then $20,000.

He detailed how the caller indicated during the conversation that "there would be no risk involved, that he has people all over, and a mark could be placed on the bag at the time. He didn't say what mark he was talking about".

He said his friend Mr. Wilkinson also spoke to the caller on his cell phone, although he did not know the extent of his friend's involvement in the plot.

Dill went on to explain that when he left to fly back home to Bermuda, his Nike duffel bag did not have a lock on it, but one had appeared on one of the zippers by the time he spotted it on the luggage carousel at Bermuda airport.

He told the jury that when he spotted this, he remembered the earlier telephone conversation and thought: "These guys have gone ahead and did something to my luggage. Excuse my language, but in the pit of my stomach I almost s**t myself, really. I was thinking I really need to get away from that bag. I didn't want to know. My nerves was all on edge and I didn't know what to do."

Dill ended up watching the bag go round before reporting his bag missing. He told the jury he decided to do this because: "I just knew that I didn't want to take possession of that bag and as far as I was concerned it was not my bag anymore. When I left New York it didn't have a lock on."

Dill's suspicious behaviour led to his arrest. He was interviewed by the Police the following day, during which he gave a similar account of what had happened. During the interview, Detective Constable Shannon Swann asked if he knew of a man named Jermaine Butterfield. The officer explained during evidence on Wednesday that Mr. Butterfield is known on the streets as "Bigs" and is someone associated "with this particular type of trafficking". He said he just threw the name out there during the interview to see how Dill responded.

In answer to further questions, the officer told the court he'd had a conversation in the back of a Police car with Dill during the investigation, in which he told Dill he dealt with a similar case months earlier and suspected that Bigs was the man behind it.

Dill told the jury yesterday that when the detective asked him about Jermaine Butterfield: "I sort of put the two together. Jermaine. Mainey. It was too close not to be the same person."

Defence lawyer Marc Daniels asked why he later asked for a second interview and told the Police he wished to retract all he'd said in the first one.

Dill replied that he'd been locked in a cell for 72 hours by then and had had a lot of time to think. He'd calculated that Bermuda's narcotics industry could be worth $300 million per year. He therefore concluded that the Police could be corrupt and involved in the plot.

Asked by Mr. Daniels why he didn't alert the Police to his suspicions about his bag before his arrest, he replied: "Quite frankly, I didn't think they would believe me. I usually get searched when I come through (the airport) and in cases like this the cards are stacked against young black men."

In his closing address to the jury, prosecutor Michael McColm urged them to agree that Dill knew about the drugs as a result of the telephone conversation. He urged the eight men and four women to convict the defendant.

However, Mr. Daniels asked them to acquit his client, stressing: "You have to believe beyond reasonable doubt that he knew the drug was in his bag."

Mr. Daniels also stressed that nothing incriminating was found in Dill's home when the Police raided it and there were no telephone records produced in evidence of any plotting on his part. Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves is due to begin summing up the case this morning before sending the jury out.