ST GEORGE'S–West In­dies crick­eter An­dre Fletch­er says the EC$2,000 (One EC dol­lar = US$0.37 cents) fine im­posed on him by a court in Do­mini­ca for pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion was as a re­sult of a 'gen­uine mis­un­der­stand­ing' on his part.

How­ev­er the Grena­di­an wick­et keep­er bats­man says he has ac­cept­ed full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty fol­low­ing his ar­rest at the Dou­glas Charles Air­port af­ter se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials found 50 rounds of .22 am­mu­ni­tion in his pos­ses­sion.

In a wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed state­ment re­leased this week­end, Fletch­er says he had no idea that the pack­age in his pos­ses­sion was ac­tu­al­ly .22 am­mu­ni­tion in­stead of .22 pel­lets for the reg­is­tered hunt­ing air ri­fle he owns.

"Whilst in Do­mini­ca, I came in­to pos­ses­sion of a pack­age of what I thought were pel­lets for my air ri­fle, and sought to car­ry them back with me. The pack­age was ob­tained from a per­son who has a li­cense to have such items," said Fletch­er.

"When I ob­tained the pack­age it was sealed. Hav­ing been told that the pack­age con­tained air ri­fle pel­lets, with­out close­ly in­spect­ing it fur­ther I as­sumed that the con­tents were in­deed what I was told. Un­til it was brought to my at­ten­tion at the air­port, I had no inkling that the pack­age con­tained live am­mu­ni­tion".

Fletch­er, who played 15 ODIs and 22 Twen­ty20 in­ter­na­tion­als for West In­dies, was leav­ing Do­mini­ca af­ter par­tic­i­pat­ing in a train­ing camp with the Wind­ward Is­land Vol­ca­noes ahead of the Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL).

He said he car­ried the pack­age in his car­ry-on bag and it was dur­ing rou­tine in­spec­tion that he was in­formed by a cus­toms of­fi­cer that he was car­ry­ing the am­mu­ni­tion.

Fletch­er, who last played for the West In­dies in a T20 game against South Africa in Dur­ban in Jan­u­ary, said he was treat­ed with re­spect by au­thor­i­ties in Do­mini­ca and is thank­ful for the role played by team man­ag­er Lock­hart Se­bastien in re­solv­ing the is­sue.

Fletch­er's ar­rest in Do­mini­ca on an am­mu­ni­tion charge had sparked con­cern in Grena­da, es­pe­cial­ly with­in the lo­cal crick­et fra­ter­ni­ty where of­fi­cials ap­peared con­fused over the in­ci­dent.

In a slight­ly lengthy state­ment aimed at clear­ing the air Fletch­er has in­sist­ed that he had no in­ten­tions of com­pro­mis­ing his crick­et ca­reer.