Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Four mem­bers of a Ste Madeleine fam­i­ly were yes­ter­day de­nied bail when they ap­peared in the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates' Court charged with co­caine pos­ses­sion. Na­dia Nan­dan, 23, her com­mon-law hus­band To­ba Ramkissoon, 33, to­geth­er with his broth­ers Joel Ramkissoon, 32, and Mark Amo­ra, 31, ap­peared in the San Fer­nan­do Fourth Mag­is­trate's Court charged with the drug-re­lat­ed of­fence.

The four, of Murchin­son Cas­tle Cres­cent, Ste Madeleine, are ac­cused of hav­ing 15.4 grammes of co­caine in their pos­ses­sion on March 18, 2010. They were ar­rest­ed and charged by act­ing Cpl In­shan Teeluck. At­tor­ney Ru­pert Frank, who ap­peared for the four ac­cused, ap­plied for bail on their be­half. He said Nan­dan was "just vis­it­ing at the time" and had no knowl­edge of the drugs. He said she had no pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions and is en­rolled in a gov­ern­ment-run train­ing pro­gramme.

The at­tor­ney said he did not have time to get in­struc­tions from the broth­ers. Chakar, how­ev­er, said she want­ed to get a trace on the quar­tet be­fore con­sid­er­ing grant­i­ng bail. Nan­dan wept as she was es­cort­ed out of the court. The four ac­cused were re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody to reap­pear on Thurs­day. They were ar­rest­ed af­ter the ex­e­cu­tion of a search war­rant at their home. Po­lice al­so seized $480.