A miner was yesterday remanded to prison after being arraigned on a drug trafficking charge.
Jermaine Beveney, 25, of 115 Ogle Strip Triumph, East Coast Demerara, appeared before Chief Magistrate Priya Sewnarine-Beharry in a city court charged with having 457 grammes of cannabis in his possession for the purpose of trafficking on September 6, at Itabali, Essequibo River.
Beveney denied the charge.
Prosecutor Michael Grant said that police at Itabali were conducting patrol duties when motor vehicle GKK 531, in which Beveney and other persons were travelling, drove up.
The court was told that the lawmen instructed the occupants to disembark with their bags, which were searched.
According to Grant the bag in which the illegal substance was found was identified by Beveney as belonging to him and he was later arrested.
Attorney James Bond, who represented Beveney, challenged the assertion that the bag containing the drug belonged to his client. The lawyer argued that there was nothing peculiar about the bag that substantiated that it was his client’s nor was it in his sole custody, care or control, since there were a number of other persons travelling in the vehicle at the time. These factors, he said, amounted to special circumstances for bail.
He said that both Beveney and his wife were initially detained but that the woman was later released while he was charged.
In his bail application, Bond said that his client has no antecedents, posed no risk of flight and had a stable job as a miner for the past three years, during which he worked at his family’s interior operations.
But Grant said also that the defence failed to “raise special circumstances” for the granting of bail. He objected to him being granted bail, citing the nature, gravity, seriousness and prevalence of the offence.
Beveney was informed that he would be remanded to prison and the case was transferred to the Bartica Magistrate’s Court for September 8.
