A hire care passenger who was nabbed with four grammes of cannabis sativa (ganja) on Christmas Day, was fined $15,000 with an alternative of twenty days imprisonment after he confessed to the charge of narcotic possession before Magistrate Adela Nagamootoo in the New Amsterdam Court . Murtaza Sataur was being motored in  hire car HB 9786 along Strand Public road in New Amsterdam on December 25 last, when police ranks stopped the vehicle, prior to conducting a search which revealed portions of the ‘African Bush’ in his pants ‘back pocket’.

Pleading for a ‘small thing’, the defendant said: “Your worship, I got a  cold, so  I trying the herb. I hear it good for the ailment.”
In addition to the fine, Sataur was ordered to do two months of community work  at the Central Police Station. (Jeune Bailey Vankeric)