Ice hockey player Jere Karalahti’s latest narcotics offence allegations are based on a photograph showing white stuff in the athlete’s nostril and on a nearby table. According to prosecutor Heli Vesaaja and the police, the white substance in question is cocaine.

At his Monday trial, Karalahti was unable to say what the white substance was and how it had ended up in his nostril. He nevertheless denied any allegations of drug abuse.

The incriminating photograph of the ice hockey star was taken in a friend’s home in March 2007 at 5:42 AM after a night out that had involved heavy drinking. Karalahti continued the night at his friend’s place with the owner of the residence and another friend.

The police uncovered the photograph on Karalahti’s friend’s computer and memory stick in connection with a house search earlier this autumn.

According to the prosecution, the photograph shows a lump of cocaine and a thin layer of powder in Karalahti’s right nostril. On a nearby table at least 30 grams of cocaine is also to be seen, the charges claim.

The prosecutor has deduced that the trio in question had the drug in their possession for the purpose of using it and distributing it to others.

The prosecutor calls for the minimum of a one-year suspended sentence for Karalahti and his friend for an aggravated narcotics offence. The third man has already been convicted of narcotics offences in connection with another case and was therefore not in the dock on Monday.

The legal counsel for the defendants objected vigorously to the prosecutor’s view that the white powder shown in the photograph was cocaine. In their view one could not draw such a conclusion from the picture.

Karalahti himself said that he was so heavily intoxicated at the time that he cannot possibly remember what the photograph’s white stuff was.

The Finnish Ice Hockey League’s regular season had ended the previous day.

Karalahti had celebrated it with other HIFK Helsinki players with a traditional sauna evening and later on in a downtown Helsinki watering-hole. After last orders, Karalahti had gone to his friend’s place to continue the celebrations.

“I was too drunk to know which was east or west”, Karalahti described his state of intoxication.

In an October police hearing the ice hockey player answered slightly differently when asked about possible cocaine use based on the photograph.

“Judging by the pictures that I have been shown, it is likely that I have used something. I do not remember the night in question”, was Karalahti’s reply at that time.

In the court Karalahti insisted repeatedly that he does not use drugs at all. Karalahti and his attorney Paul Perovuo both noted that the photograph could well be just a joke by drunken men.

Karalahti’s two associates had equally poor recollections of what happened at the friend’s place. The man already convicted of a narcotics offence admitted that he had used cocaine in the residence that evening, but said he did it in the bathroom in secret from the others.

The Helsinki District Court will pronounce its verdict on the case in two weeks’ time, on Monday December 1st.

This is the second time Jere Karalahti has faced criminal sanctions over a photograph. In an earlier incident a picture allegedly showed cocaine on a table, but the prosecutor chose not to press charges in this case.

Karalahti was instead found guilty of aiding and abetting in a case of aggravated drug crime in March of this year, and received a suspended sentence. That case is now heading to the Appeal Court.

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