MAGISTRATE Adela Nagamootoo, last Friday, imposed two four-year prison sentences on Wazim Mohammed, who was convicted of trafficking 30 kilogrammes of cannabis (marijuana) and cultivating the prohibited plant. He was apprehended at Gate Roy, Berbice River, after a party of policemen, headed by Assistant Superintendent, Calvin Brutus, went to the riverine area on an eradication exercise, on June 1, 2010.
Police Inspector, Donna Fraser-Grant, prosecuting in the New Amsterdam court, also in Berbice, led evidence from four witnesses, who testified of seeing Mohammed, as he slashed overgrown weeds with a grasscutter in the cultivation plot.
The ranks had, earlier, been to the bushy area on the western side of the river bank, from where they were alerted to the sound of a machine that was being operated by Mohammed.
The court heard that Mohammed was seen with a large polythene parcel containing a quantity of dried leaves, seeds and stems of the herb and, on being questioned, he took the law enforcement to a big tent where there was another set of the narcotic.
Subsequent raids were conducted on three more marijuana fields, where other plants were discovered in greenhouses.
However, the two jail terms will run concurrently.