Drug traffickers to be sentenced next week

Justice Randall Worrell will on Thursday, August 27 sentence two men who tried to import 474 kilogrammes of marijuana into Barbados on a fishing boat.

An adjournment was given during a Zoom hearing when the cases against Glyne Leroy Carter, of Odessa McClean Drive, My Lord’s Hill, St Michael and Oswald O’Brien Pitt, of Pinder’s Gap, Howell’s Cross Road, St Michael continued in the No. 2 Supreme Court.

The two men had previously pleaded guilty to possession, trafficking in and importation of the illegal substance within Barbados’ territorial waters on April 15, 2016.

On that day coast guard and marine officials spotted a vessel “dead” in the water facing in a southerly direction with two men onboard about ten nautical miles off Carlisle Bay.

When lawmen approached and boarded the vessel, they noticed a strong scent of marijuana

Onboard were also several bulky packages – 21 polythene bags, a taped package and a Ziploc bag all containing vegetable matter. The men and vessel were taken into police custody.

Today the men’s attorney-at-law Asante Brathwaite made submissions on their behalf and urged the court to impose a starting sentence of eight years on her clients. She said after taking into consideration the mitigating and aggravating factors, the time they had spent on remand at Dodds as well as the one third credit for their guilty plea her clients should be left with a sentence of “time served” on the trafficking offence.

The lawyer argued that the major aggravating factor of the case was the quantity of drugs involved. Mitigating on the men’s behalf she said there was no violence involved and there was no evidence to show that they were the “masterminds” of the enterprise.

But Senior Crown Counsel Olivia Davis countered, suggesting that the starting point in the case should be 12 years given the quantity of cannabis involved. She argued that there was some degree of planning as the drugs were packaged in a “particular way”.

The prosecutor further submitted that the sentence should serve as a deterrent for other would-be offenders seeking “quick” financial gain through the importation of drugs via fishing vessels.