A judge in New York has ruled against a Liberian woman who cited religious reasons for smuggling meat from an endangered species of monkey

Raymond J Dearie, a federal US district judge, said that Mamie Manneh was wrong when she claimed that her faith meant that she did not need to apply for permits to import exotic food stuffs. He also said she should not have misled officials. Mrs Manneh had been charged with smuggling the meat in to Kennedy Airport as she returned from the war-torn West African state on her way back home to New York. However, her lawyers' attempts to claim a right under the first amendment of the US constitution, which guarantees religious rights, fell on deaf ears. Now Mrs Manneh faces up to five years in prison - as well as possible deportation. The woman, who has nine children, is already serving a prison sentence for trying to run over a woman whom she suspected of sleeping with her husband. Her consumption of monkey meat is not a problem for her church in Staten Island, New York, where other African immigrants also like to eat the meat. But under American law it is illegal: as she has now discovered.

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