Dutch prosecutors said on Wednesday they were looking for a nine year prison sentence for Spartak Moscow's Dutch forward Quincy Promes, who is being tried for drug trafficking.
Prosecutors last year said the former international was suspected of having been involved with smuggling 1,360 kg of cocaine through the port of Antwerp, Belgium, to the Netherlands in two shipments in 2020.
Promes did not attend the court hearing in Amsterdam. His lawyers told Dutch news agency ANP he denies the charges of importing, exporting, transporting and possessing the drugs.
The cocaine had been hidden in shipments of salt from Brazil, the prosecutors said on Wednesday.
Phone taps had shown that Promes had been directly involved with the shipment of the drugs to Antwerp and their further transport and sale, they said.
In another Dutch court case, the 32-year old former Ajax and Sevilla forward last year was sentenced in absentia to 18 months in jail for assault, in connection with a fight in 2020 in which he stabbed a cousin in the knee.
Promes has filed an appeal against that sentence. He is living in Moscow and it is not certain he will return to the Netherlands.
"Promes seems to consider himself untouchable in Russia or abroad," the Public Prosecution Service said. Promes denies being involved in the drug import. The former FC Twente and Ajax player has been spotted internationally, meaning he can be arrested anywhere in the world. As long as he stays in Russia, he is relatively safe.
The date of the verdict is yet to be set.