Resh­ma Ra­goonath

A San Fer­nan­do con­trac­tor, held with a quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na hid­den in a re­frig­er­a­tor be­neath his home, was yes­ter­day fined $2,000. Afzal Hamid, 50, of Pic­ton, Di­a­mond Vil­lage, ap­peared be­fore San Fer­nan­do Sec­ond Court Mag­is­trate Tara­mat­tie Ram­dass where he plead­ed guilty. Hamid, who was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney An­na Lee Gir­war, was ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cers of the Or­gan­ised Crime, Nar­cotics and Firearms Bu­reau (OC­NFB.) He was charged with hav­ing 302.62 grammes of mar­i­jua­na in his pos­ses­sion on Thurs­day. Gir­war, in her plea in mit­i­ga­tion, said Hamid was "sor­ry for what he did." She said he suf­fered from pain be­cause of an un-di­ag­nosed med­ical con­di­tion and he heed­ed ad­vice to use the drug to get re­lief. "To negate his pain he fool­ish­ly in­dulged. He suf­fers from un­bear­able pain," she said.

Gir­war said Hamid made a valu­able con­tri­bu­tion to his com­mu­ni­ty since he em­ployed up to ten peo­ple in his con­tract­ing busi­ness. Gir­war added that it was Hamid's first of­fence. Ram­dass, in pass­ing sen­tence, told Hamid he faced up to $25,000 in fines and five years hard labour. "Did you know that?," she asked. The fa­ther of four shook his head side to side as he said, "No." Ram­dass told Hamid he had a lot of mar­i­jua­na in his pos­ses­sion. She or­dered him to pay $2,000 in sev­en days or serve four months hard labour. Ac­cord­ing to Phillip, of­fi­cers of the OC­NFB searched Hamid's home around 4 pm on Thurs­day and found the mar­i­jua­na hid­den in a re­frig­er­a­tor un­der his house.