Six charged with smuggling
on sailing boat Blue Moon
PHILIPSBURG--Five men and a female worker of the Immigration Department, all charged with involvement in the drug trade, stood trial Tuesday.
They were all charged with the import, trade and possession of 104 kilos of marijuana. The drugs were found by the Coast Guard of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba on board sailing boat Blue Moon, which was sailing 11 miles to the northeast of Montserrat with destination St. Maarten, on June 15.
The main suspect in this case is boat owner S.E.J. (30) of St. Lucia. He had organised several boat trips from St. Maarten to St. Lucia and back between December 2006 and June 15, 2007.
His boat had been searched for drugs on its arrival in St. Maarten on two earlier occasions, but none was found until June 15. The ship’s owner was not on board his vessel that day. He had returned from St. Lucia two days earlier by plane, allegedly acting on a tip-off by Immigration officer A.Z.P. (34), whose case was postponed until September 18.
She will be charged with bribery, corruption and forgery, Prosecutor Dikran Sarian announced. He indicated that he would probably be dropping the drugs smuggling charges in her case, stating he would be asking for a sentence equal to the time she had already spent in pre-trial detention. Consequently, the judge decided to suspend her detention, and she was immediately released from custody.
The Prosecutor was not as lenient in S.E.J.’s case and asked for eight years, a NAf. 50,000 fine and confiscation of his boat. The suspect himself did not deny that he had negotiated several drug deals, but he denied any involvement in drug transports via his boat.
Boat captain B.M. (35) of St. Lucia tried to take all the blame. He had no problem with admitting that growing and selling drugs was his business. He didn’t consider it to be a crime. “These aren’t drugs,” he told former President of the Joint Court of the Netherlands Antilles Luis de Lannoy during his first session as a travelling judge in St. Maarten, “this is ganja.”
Informing him of the fact that trading in marijuana is just as punishable as trading in any other drug, Sarian asked the judge for a four-year prison sentence.
Attorney-at-law Denicio Brison tried to convince the Judge that the Prosecutor didn’t have a case against his clients S.E.J. and B.M. He based this on the fact that the alleged crime had not taken place in St. Maarten, but in international waters 200 miles away from the island. “The drugs were not even destined for St. Maarten, but for St. Thomas,” Brison contended. He considered the charges not proven, and said that at no time had any drugs been found in S.E.J.’s possession.
The judge will give his decision in these cases on August 24.
The ship’s crew members John St. Croix (39) of St. Lucia, and Kimani Abiola Williams (23) and Kenroy Dublin (43), both of St. Vincent, received prison sentences of 365 days, 298 of which were suspended, with three years’ probation and reduction of time already spent in detention. They will also be banned from travelling to St. Maarten for a period of two years. The Prosecutor had asked for a 10-year ban.
