Derek Achong

The Court of Ap­peal has agreed to five-year re­duc­tions in the 25-year prison terms of two con­vict­ed drug traf­fick­ers.Al­though Uraz Mo­hammed and Ot­to Lan­cast­er had both been sen­tenced to the 25-year min­i­mum sen­tence as pre­scribed by Sec­tion 5(5) of the Dan­ger­ous Drugs Act, the Ap­peal Court agreed with their at­tor­neys that the court had the pow­er to vary the sen­tence.The three judges re­lied on a land­mark judg­ment de­liv­ered last De­cem­ber, when a spe­cial five-mem­ber court ruled that the min­i­mum sen­tence was un­con­sti­tu­tion­al, as it took away a judge's dis­cre­tion in the sen­tenc­ing pro­ce­dure.

As a re­sult, they de­cid­ed the ap­pro­pri­ate sen­tence for each man should have been 20 years in prison.In ad­di­tion to his sen­tence, Mo­hammed al­so chal­lenged his con­vic­tion, say­ing the judge had failed to di­rect the ju­ry prop­er­ly on a dozen is­sues, in­clud­ing in­con­sis­ten­cies in po­lice ev­i­dence and a pros­e­cu­tor's al­leged prej­u­di­cial com­ments, that were vi­tal to the fair­ness of the tri­al.

How­ev­er, the three judges–Paula Mae-Weekes, Al­ice Yorke-Soo Hon and Ra­jen­dra Nar­ine–agreed that Mo­hammed's claims were with­out mer­it. Lan­cast­er, 42, of Ar­gyle Street, Bel­mont, was con­vict­ed al­most nine months af­ter Mo­hammed.He was rep­re­sent­ed by Kei­th Scot­land and Mo­hammed by Pamela El­der, SC, and Richard Ma­son. Se­nior Coun­sel Gilbert Pe­ter­son and As­sis­tant Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) George Bus­by rep­re­sent­ed the State.