An­na-Lisa Paul

A 41-year-old man, of Jag­gan Vil­lage, San­ta Cruz, who was held by po­lice of­fi­cers on Tues­day night on an out­stand­ing war­rant, has ap­peared in court charged with two new of­fences. Ter­ry Mo­hammed plead­ed guilty to pos­ses­sion of one gram of mar­i­jua­na and an ap­pa­ra­tus to smoke co­caine when he stood be­fore Mag­is­trate Chris­tine Charles in the Port-of-Spain Fifth Court. Mo­hammed was ar­rest­ed on Wednes­day morn­ing while be­ing searched at the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates' Court, af­ter PC Nicholas Hen­ry of the Court and Process Branch dis­cov­ered the items in his bag.

Re­mand­ing Mo­hammed in cus­tody un­til Ju­ly 31, Charles was un­able to ad­journ the mat­ter to an ear­li­er date af­ter learn­ing Nicholas would have to ob­tain a writ to have Mo­hammed brought back to the court in re­la­tion to the new charges. The T&T Guardian learned Mo­hammed was held on a war­rant that spec­i­fied he was not en­ti­tled to bail up­on his ar­rest and had to serve nine months hard labour for fail­ing to pay a traf­fic tick­et one year ago. The court heard from pros­e­cu­tor, Sgt An­der­son Gon­za­les, that Nicholas would need the writ, signed by a High Court judge, to com­pel the prison au­thor­i­ties to bring Mo­hammed to court, a process which could take as long as 14 days to com­plete.