SEVERAL foreigners were before Magistrate Hazel Octave-Hamilton yesterday, facing separate drugs charges.
Three Jamaicans, Marlon Anthony Brown, 27, of Clarendon; Jeffrey Alphanso Edwards, 45, of St. Mary and Delroy Anthony Johnson, 43, of Kingston, together with Gerald Prowell, 43, of Lot 106 ‘C’ Field, Sophia, Greater Georgetown, pleaded not guilty to having, on March 30, trafficked 959 grammes of cannabis (marijuana) at Lot 59 Light Street, Alberttown, also in the city,
They were remanded to prison and will make their next appearance, in another Court, on April 20.
Another defendant, Brazilian Lindenberg Costa Da Silva, pleaded guilty to trafficking 942 grammes of marijuana, at Lethem last March 26.
Police Inspector Joel Ricknauth, prosecuting, said the illegal substance was found in a box that Da Silva was carrying when he was stopped and searched.
Da Silva (no address given), who speaks Portuguese, told the Court, through a translator, that the Police did not give him a chance to tell his story.
He said he did not buy the narcotic but someone from Lethem commanded him to take it over the Takutu River Bridge, with the threat that he would be shot if he did not.
In response to the magistrate’s inquiry, Da Silva said it was not the first time he was transporting marijuana from Guyana to Brazil.
He was fined $800,000, equivalent to the value of the narcotic and jailed for four years.
The other defendant, who hails from Barcelona, Spain, Ivan Morales Castillo, 33, pleaded not guilty to having trafficked 1, 954kilogramms of cocaine, by attempting to export it through Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timheri, East Bank Demerara, on March 31.
On an application for an early trial, by attorney-at-law Mr. Peter Hugh, it was set for April 6 at Providence Court, also on East Bank Demerara, to where it case has been transferred.