British chef Ramsay's brother goes on trial for heroin possession in Bali

British chef Gordon Ramsay's younger brother went on trial for heroin possession Thursday - a charge that faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, court officials said.

Photo: British chef Ramsay's brother goes on trial for heroin possession in Bali

Ronald Ramsay, 39, sat quietly as prosecutors told the Denpasar District Court that police who searched him outside a supermarket on Indonesia's resort island of Bali in February found 100 milligrams of the drug in his pocket.

"The defendant had the heroin inside a red Marlboro packet," Agung Kusumayasa Ciputra said in reading out three pages of charges.

Under Indonesia's tough anti-drug laws Ramsay could face a maximum 10-year jail sentence, although penalties are generally less for possession of small quantities of drugs for personal use.

Traffickers are routinely sentenced to death. At the end of 2006, 134 people were on death row, including 37 foreigners and 97 Indonesians, most of them for drug-related crimes.

Gordon Ramsay rose to international prominence as one of the top chefs in Britain after opening a string of Michelin-starred restaurants, starring in television cooking shows "Hell's Kitchen" and "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares," and publishing a series of best-selling cookbooks.

Ramsay opened his first London-based restaurant in 1998, at the age of 31, and now owns businesses in Europe, Asia and America.

His brother's drug problems and attempts to kick heroin addiction have been widely covered by British tabloid newspapers.