WESTERN BUREAU

A man who said that he was assisting a woman when his luggage was found to contain ganja disguised as Easter buns was given 15 months' imprisonment in the Montego Bay Resident Magistrate's Court yesterday.

Farmer, Tony Davis, 43, of St Elizabeth, pleaded guilty to charges of possession, dealing in and attempting to export 14.5 pounds of ganja. Despite his guilty plea, he tried to convince the court, without success, that he was assisting a woman to check in the items as she had too much luggage.

He told Resident Magistrate Winsome Henry that when the woman showed him the items in the bag, he had no issues with assisting her as the boxes of buns looked genuine. Davis pleaded with RM Henry not to send him to prison.

"Your Honour mi a beg yu, just caution mi Your Honour cause mi no inna no position fi tek a prison sentence," Davis said. "Right now mi have a kidney stone and mi have colon cancer right here so inna mi lungs."

RM Henry did not buy his story and imposed the sentence, along with fines of $15,000 or six months for possession and $116,000 or six months for attempting to export.

On April 4, Davis checked in at the Sangster International Airport to board an Air Jamaica flight to Curaçao. A suitcase and a travelling bag he had were searched and 19 boxes of Easter buns containing packages of ganja found. He told the police a woman gave them to him, but when taken to the aeroplane could not point her out.