How did a man who brought a GUN from Mexico City to London via Paris have his prison sentence completely overturned?
In an “extraordinary” case, a man who was jailed after a gun was found in his suitcase at Heathrow Airport is to be released from prison after winning an appeal.
Rogelio Ahumada Y Otero got an apparently nasty surprise at the airport security check when it was discovered he was carrying an automatic pistol, loaded magazine and loose cartridges in the pockets of his suitcase.
The 74-year-old Mexican businessman was convicted of possession of a firearm, which is illegal in the UK and carries a minimum sentence of five years.
This was in May – the next month Ahumada Y Otero appeared in court and pleaded guilty to possessing a prohibited firearm.
However, on Thursday it was announced that Ahumada Y Otero’s appeal has been successful and his two-year prison sentence has been overturned.
But this begs the question – how do you get off scott-free after carrying a firearm through multiple international airports? City PM spoke to Ahumada Y Otero’s lawyer, Richard Kovalevsky KC of Cohen & Gresser, to find out more about the legal quirk that led to this “unprecedented” turn of events.
The full story
Ahumada Y Otero’s journey – according to lawyer Kovalevsky – started in the Mexican countryside when he decided to pack his firearm for a trip to his Mexico City residence – to “have the gun looked at”.
An internationally-recognised marketing chief who then went into property, Ahumada Y Otero was lawfully in possession of a firearm in Mexico, where as part of the constitution, citizens may own guns with a permit.
As the property magnate prepared his four suitcases for a European trip with his wife, the gun was allegedly overlooked and got left unnoticed.
It was only in Heathrow, trying to board a flight to Madrid, that Otero’s gun was discovered as he waved it through the hand-luggage security checkpoint.
“In this wretched suitcase,” Kovalevsky explained, “there was a pocket on the inside of the case.” This is, it’s claimed, how the gun was overlooked – despite the businessman asking his maid repeatedly whether the gun was in the bag or not (she said it wasn’t).
The unwittingly gun-laden suitcase duly became a storage of medical items for the trip also including appliances such as Ahumada Y Otero’s wife’s hairdryer.
The case then travelled from Mexico City airport to Paris’s Charles de Gaulle hub without a hitch. After a short stay in Paris, still unknowingly carrying the gun in the zipped-up pocked of one of his suitcases, Ahumada Y Otero took the Eurostar from Paris to London – where again, the gun allegedly went through security undetected.
It was only later, in Heathrow, whilst trying to board a flight to Madrid, that Ahumada Y Otero’s gun was discovered as he waved it through the hand-luggage security checkpoint.
The conviction
Despite the business tycoon’s “horrified and devastated” reaction, the judge in his original court case sentenced him to 26 months in jail, some way shy of the six-year maximum.
This was despite an acceptance that Ahumada Y Otero did not know the gun was with him, even though he admitted it was working and was indeed his own property.
The appeal
With an absolute case of possession – which this was – there are only exceptions made in instances of total ignorance.
On Ahumada Y Otero’s appeal, the judge had to hear evidence on that single question: “did he know or not know” about the gun?
That is what makes this case so “exceptional”, Kovalevsky explains, as it is distinct from other crimes in that it was Ahumada Y Otero’s intention alone that would decide his future.
To prove Ahumada Y Otero’s ‘good intention’, Kovalevsky drew on his “exemplary character” to appeal his case.
Due to his business links and reputation in Mexico, Ahumada Y Otero boasted 80 references from high-profile individuals. Even the Mexican consul was present in court.
Kovalevsky explained this sort of crime is more often perpetrated by passengers who have accepted a mysterious package from a relative stranger to take on their plane journey – in which case the accused cannot fully argue they do not know about the item (even if they don’t know exactly what it is). In Ahumada Y Otero’s case however, he argued he was totally unaware the firearm was in his luggage.
The judge ultimately agreed, ruling the previous decision had been “wrong”, ruling that in the “very unusual circumstances” of the case, “appropriate punishment” could be achieved through a suspended sentence.
‘Unprecedented’
Kovalevsky is used to getting high net-worth clients out of scrapes but this case, he told City PM, was “unprecedented”.
Although he didn’t preempt the outcome of the trial – “you can never expect anything at the Court of Appeal” – he was pleased with the result.
“The right outcome was one that doesn’t deprive [Ahumada Y Otero] of his liberty,” the lawyer said.
Ahumada Y Otero may be free after a stint in Brixton Prison, but the appeal doesn’t answer questions passengers may have about safety protocol in international hubs.
City PM contacted Eurostar for comment over allegations Ahumada Y Otero accidentally brought a gun through security.
A spokesperson for the inter-country rail service said that they are “investigating this claim”.
He added: “Unlicensed firearms, including replicas and de-activated firearms, imitation or toy guns, as well as ammunition of any calibre and in any quantity is prohibited on all Eurostar services.”