Kiwi missionary guilty of importing methamphetamine

Photo / File

A New Zealand missionary has been found guilty of importing more than nine kilograms of methamphetamine and heroin into Darwin at an Australian Supreme Court yesterday.

Bernadine Terry Prince - also known as Pastor Bernie McCully - grew up in the Whakatane area, but lived in Sydney for about 15 years until she left her Australian husband to live in Cambodia and marry Nigerian minister Joshua Prince in 2012.

The 41-year-old mother of three was charged with importing a commercial quantity of a border-controlled substance and was found guilty after the jury deliberated for five hours, ABC News reported.

She is due to be sentenced next week and faces a maximum sentence of three years' in prison and a A$340,000 fine.

Prince was returning to Australia from a five-week trip in Kenya and Cambodia last May year when her suitcases were delayed in Singapore, the Australian Associated Press reported.

Crown prosecutor Glen Rice told a Supreme Court jury last week that when the suitcases arrived in Darwin, a Customs officer detected traces of drugs on seven vinyl backpacks which were unusually heavy.

Upon inspection, the officer discovered packages sewn into each backpack containing crystal methamphetamine and heroin with a combined weight of more than 9kg, Mr Rice told the court.

The drugs had a street value of up to A$2 million.

Prince, an ordained minister and head of the Oasis of Grace International Church, has consistently claimed a Kenyan woman called "Mummy Rose" gave her the backpacks to sell in churches in Australia.

She claimed the bags were made by African women, AAP reported.

However, Mr Rice said her claim didn't stack up.

"The bags were commercially produced bags that might be made anywhere. In fact, they were tagged as having been made in China," he said.

Also, the cardboard used to pack the drugs was Cambodian, meaning the backpacks were either not obtained in Kenya at all, or were packed with drugs during the four days she spent in Cambodia on her return trip, Mr Rice said.

Prince consistently maintained she did not know the drugs were concealed inside the backpacks.