Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

An em­ploy­ee of the Min­istry of Works, Rio Claro, was fined $5,500 af­ter be­ing found guilty by a Princes Town mag­is­trate of pos­ses­sion of arms and am­mu­ni­tion. Lin­coln Ram­per­sad, 33, of Wor­rel Road, Table­land, ap­peared yes­ter­day be­fore Mag­is­trate In­dranie Ce­de­no in the Princes Town First Court charged with pos­ses­sion of a shot­gun and 13 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion. The court heard that around 2 pm on Jan­u­ary 25, 2009, a team of of­fi­cers from the Or­gan­ised Crime and Nar­cotics Bu­reau, led by ASP Dook­ie, went sev­en miles in­to the Vic­to­ria for­est, off Moru­ga, and found Ram­per­sad hold­ing the firearm.

Ram­per­sad, who was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Farouk Ho­sein, plead­ed not guilty. Two wit­ness­es tes­ti­fied for the de­fence. ASP Dook­ie and PC Ayres gave ev­i­dence for the pros­e­cu­tion. He was or­dered to pay $3,000 for firearm pos­ses­sion and $2,500 for pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion. In de­fault, Ram­per­sad will serve ten months' im­pris­on­ment with hard labour.