More details are emerging on the charges a Dominican prosecutor has pressed against Bruno Odos and Pascal Fauret, the two pilots convicted in the so-called “Air Cocaine” case. The 400-page judgment provides insight into why the tribunal decided to consider the Falcon’s flight private rather than commercial, a decision that leaves the pilots liable for the cargo. The crew of a commercial flight bears no such responsibility.

According to the document, Swissport’s Punta Cana Airport handling facility was serving both commercial and private flights. Witness Melissa Rijo, who describes herself as the supervisor of private flight activities at the time, said Falcon 50 F-GXMC was operating privately. She said the pilots moved the aircraft onto an apron dedicated to private flights the day after it had been parked on the apron for commercial flights. They were initially directed to the apron for commercial flights because it was nighttime when the trijet landed. Some time after it had taxied to the apron for private flights, the aircraft was towed close to the airport’s perimeter fence, which was not possible on the commercial apron, Rijo went on. Some 20 suitcases–full of cocaine–were later smuggled through the fence.

Rijo said, however, that she levied charges on the flight at the commercial rate.

Another witness, Valentin Rosado Vicioso, a high-ranking police officer, said the crew had deliberately obtained two “approvals”–one commercial and one private–for the flight from Punta Cana to Saint-Tropez. Rosado Vicioso asserted that the private approval would be the one used if everything went as planned. But in the event something went wrong, the crew would have resorted to the commercial one, he added. An aircraft operating privately can be seized by the authorities, while a commercial flight cannot, Rosado Vicioso explained.

Fauret and Odos have long insisted that their flight was commercial, referring to evidence such as the flight plan number.

It has also emerged that, shortly after their arrest, they were visited by Michel Ségura, a Frenchman who, according to the pilots’ lawyers, introduced himself as “working for the French embassy” in the Dominican Republic and appeared willing to help them. In fact, the lawyers say, he was a police officer. Excerpts from the conversation were used in the judicial case against Odos and Fauret, which violates the defendants’ rights, according to the lawyers.

Dominican authorities seized the Falcon 50 and installed a surveillance device on it.