A Guyanese man has been jailed for 20 years in Ghana for cocaine trafficking and three others are to face trial later this month, according to a report on Ghanaweb.com.
An Accra High Court this week sentenced Miller Ronald O’Neil, a Guyanese and Captain of the Guyanese ship caught with the drugs as well as Seth Grant, a Ghanaian. The website said that the duo was convicted on their own plea and sentenced to 20 and 15 years respectively, on each of the three counts leveled against them. The sentences are to run concurrently.
The report said that three others, Perceval Curt, Samuel Mornty and Saint Praimchad, all Guyanese, who were also allegedly involved in the crime and who pleaded not guilty, are expected to appear in court on January 10, to stand trial.
The report said that they were all accused of engaging in a criminal conspiracy to commit an offence by engaging in a business relating to narcotic drugs, importation of narcotic drugs without lawful authority and possessing narcotic drugs without lawful authority.
The sentence was imposed after a test conducted on the 414 exhibits suspected to be cocaine by an official from the Ghana Standard Authority, turned out to be positive for the drug, the report said.
The court presided over by Justice C.J. Hoenyenugah, an Appeal court judge, sitting as an additional High Court judge, ordered the destruction of 413 of the exhibits by officials from the narcotic control board. The remaining one is to be held for the trial of the other three accused persons.
The five were arrested in the Western region aboard a Guyanese ship, “ATIYAH, George-Town”, containing 21 bags of the drug. The report said that the ship was travelling from Guyana when it was arrested and escorted by Ghana Naval Ship, Yaa Asantewaa, to the Sekondi Naval Base.