Derek Achong

A Venezue­lan mi­grant, who was caught with a bul­let hid­den in his per­son­al re­li­gious ob­ject, has been sen­tenced to two months in prison with hard labour.

Alexan­der Adri­an Tinoco Senclar re­ceived the sen­tence as he plead­ed guilty to am­mu­ni­tion pos­ses­sion be­fore Mag­is­trate Re­han­na Ho­sein in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates’ Court yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

Senclar, who re­cent­ly ar­rived in Trinidad, was ar­rest­ed ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing while queu­ing with hun­dreds of his com­pa­tri­ots, who were seek­ing to take ad­van­tage of the Gov­ern­ment’s con­tin­u­ing mi­grant reg­is­tra­tion and amnesty process at the Queen’s Park Oval in Wood­brook.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence pre­sent­ed be­fore Sin­clair was sen­tenced, po­lice search his wal­let and found one round of 9mm am­mu­ni­tion hid­den in a red pouch.

Speak­ing with the as­sis­tance of the court’s Span­ish trans­la­tor, Senclar ex­plained that the pouch and its con­tents were a gift from his broth­er to ward off evil spir­its.

Senclar claimed that the “spir­it guard” was part of the Maria Li­on­za cult, which is one of the most wide­spread re­li­gions in Venezuela. The faith blends African, in­dige­nous and Catholic be­liefs.

Senclar al­so claimed that he was not aware that the item would be con­sid­ered il­le­gal in T&T.

Po­lice pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Azard Ali asked for a prison sen­tence for Senclar as he point­ed out that the of­fence was se­ri­ous and far too preva­lent.

In pass­ing the sen­tence, Ho­sein said that ig­no­rance of this coun­try’s laws was not an ex­cuse and that Senclar that he should have en­quired be­fore he brought the item.

Even if Senclar had reg­is­tered be­fore his ar­rest, he would still be de­port­ed af­ter he com­pletes his sen­tence as the Gov­ern­ment has stat­ed that mi­grants sus­pect­ed of or con­vict­ed of crim­i­nal of­fences would not ben­e­fit from the amnesty.