Drugs brothers bid to clear names

The Stow brothers served the last nine months in a British jail

Two brothers who spent nearly six years in a Portuguese prison for drug smuggling will go to the European Court of Human Rights over their convictions.

Andrew and Graham Stow from Pembrokeshire, have returned to Wales still protesting their innocence.

They were jailed after police claimed they dragged 1.2 tonnes of cannabis worth £3m across the seabed in nets behind their trawler into Faro harbour.

The pair, from Milford Haven, appealed twice against their 12-year sentence.

Diving school

The last nine months of their jail term was in a British prison, which the brothers, Andrew, 39, and Graham, 44, said was "a five star hotel" compared to the "suicide-plagued, cockroach-infested hell holes" in Portugal.

We always knew there were people outside fighting for us Graham Stow

Graham Stow added: "The conditions over there were absolutely horrendous. The prisons are nothing like you can expect in this country.

"Our first priority is just to clear our names but obviously afterwards we will be seeking compensation because a huge amount of money has been spent on this case and we've lost our boat, we've lost everything."

He added that he and his brother had begun to adjust to life back in west Wales.

"I think we're doing reasonably well - we're looking for work and we're getting ourselves back to normal as quickly as we can," he said.

"No matter how hard it was over there we always knew there were people outside fighting for us."

The Stow brothers were arrested on 17 July 1999.

They say they had docked in Faro as the first step of their project to start a diving school. They had previously stopped at the Canary Islands.

Second appeal

They claimed they discovered the cannabis while carrying out repairs to their 22m-long trawler and brought the packages up onto a nearby boat.

But Portuguese police arrested them and said they had dragged the cannabis across the sea bed.

The Stows won a retrial on the grounds that their first trial was unfair as it was not properly recorded or translated into English.

But the original decision of the court was upheld by judges in July 2002, prompting a second appeal to Portugal's supreme court. That appeal was rejected in May 2003.

Their father, Dilwyn, has spent thousands of pounds supporting his sons' legal campaign.

He said on Friday: "It's wonderful (they are home) but we've still got another case to go, another court to go through.

"We've got help there with Fair Trials Abroad and we've also got a barrister handling the case in Strasbourg.

"I've been to Portugal 15 times, the cost has been enormous.

"I haven't counted how much but it has all been worth it."

The brothers have thanked the British charity Fair Trials Abroad and Welsh MEP Glenys Kinnock for supporting them.