Youth receives conditional discharge for cannabis possession

The court acquitted the man of drug trafficking after it deemed his statement to police inadmissable, as he was not given access to a lawyer at the time

A court has handed down a conditional discharge to a 26-year-old man after it found him guilty of the simple possession of cannabis, clearing him however of the more serious crime of drug trafficking.

The accused was cleared of the second charge after the court noted that the only evidence supporting it was the second of two statements, which the accused had made shortly after his arrest in November 2005.

Defence lawyers Franco Debono and Marion Camilleri had argued that the man was a vulnerable witness who was questioned and released two statements to the police without access to legal assistance.

The man was just 17 at the time of commission of the offence, and as a consequence cannot be named.

Magistrate Natasha Galea Sciberras was told how the man had been arrested at an AFM roadblock during the night of 3 November 2005. He was found to be in possession of five blocks of cannabis resin. He had tried to avoid detection by throwing them out of the window as the car in which he was travelling approached the checkpoint but was spotted doing so by police. He later owned up to having done so.

In total, police found him to have been in possession of 15.31g of the drug.

He had released his first statement between 23:00 and 23:30 on the day of his arrest, releasing the second statement between 13:30 and 14:00 the next day. The court had heard how, after making his first statement, the accused refused to sign it, saying that he was scared.

The accused had explained to the court that while the police had not raised their voices at him or threatened him, several policemen who were walking in and out of where he was being held had added to his terror, telling him that his charges would be changed to reflect the more serious charge of trafficking. This had led him to release the second statement, he claimed.

Magistrate Sciberras held that the accused was a vulnerable witness at the time, as he had never experienced such a situation before and had been questioned alone, without the support of his parents or the assistance of a lawyer. She declared his statement inadmissible. There was a risk that, were it to rely solely on his statement, the court could well find him guilty of a crime he had not committed.

The magistrate noted that the accused had consistently repeated that the cannabis was only for his personal use and that he had bought five blocks because economies of scale dictated that it would cost him less to buy large amounts.

The magistrate held that the accused’s account was the more credible one, finding him guilty only of simple possession of cannabis and conditionally discharged him for a year.