A police constable attached to the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) was yesterday refused bail when he appeared in a Georgetown court accused of conspiracy to traffic narcotics.
Norrell Hyman, 22, of 47 De Kinderen, West Coast Demerara, yesterday stood before Chief Magistrate Priya Sewnarine-Beharry in the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court 1 and denied the charge that on April 13, on the East Bank of Demerara, he conspired with persons unknown to traffic 9.670 kilogrammes of cocaine.
Although Hyman was remanded to prison until April 27, he managed to secure his pre-trial liberty yesterday after an application was made on his behalf to the High Court.
Prosecutor Stephen Telford said Hyman, who was attached to CANU and stationed at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timehri, had taken a photograph of Arthur Manget with his phone and sent it to the airport in order to facilitate his unhindered passage out of the country.
However, during a scanning exercise at the airport, the cocaine was uncovered in false walls of two suitcases Manget was carrying.
Manget, 68, of Old Road, Land of Canaan, East Bank Demerara, was subsequently charged with trafficking 9.670 kilogrammes of cocaine. He denied the charge and was remanded to prison.
Attorney Adrian Thompson, who represented Hyman, said the allegation against Hyman was “misconceived.”
Thompson stated that his client boarded a car from one point and he subsequently exited at another location on the East Bank Public Road.
The car was transporting Manget.
Thompson further said the reason Hyman was charged was because a prisoner in the Camp Street jail had implicated him, although he had no knowledge of the cocaine.
Thompson disputed the prosecutor’s submission, while arguing that Hyman’s phone had no photograph of Manget and that the prosecutor could not identify a person to whom the photograph was sent.
In addition to being a law enforcer, Thompson said Hyman was a final year student at the University of Guyana (UG) without any criminal record.
