Paul A. Reid, Staff ReporterWESTERN BUREAU:
A ROMANIAN who was held with 5.99kg (13 lb, 3.18 ounces) of cocaine in a bag he said he was asked to carry onto a flight to Holland, was fined $1 million and sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison when he appeared in the Montego Bay Resident Magistrate's Court yesterday.
The cocaine has a street value of nearly $3.5 million.
Constantin Laiu, a 21-year-old painter from Romania first pleaded guilty to possession of and taking steps to export cocaine but then told the court he was given the bag before he got to the gate and did not know what was in it.
Resident Magistrate Ms. Valerie Stephens asked him why he pleaded guilty to the charges in the first place and when he tried to say that he could not follow the proceedings, she rejected his arguments and accepted his pleas. She had also given him the option to change his plea, telling him he had the choice to go to trial where she would decide whether he was guilty or not.
He had also pleaded not guilty to dealing in, and will return to court on Monday after the Clerk of Courts Sandria Wong Small asked the court for time to decide whether to go to trial or to dismiss the charge.
Laiu was arrested on March 28 when the police was summoned to gate number 11 at the Sangster International Airport where he was handed over along with a blue suitcase which, when searched, was found to have six packages containing the drug. The packages were supposed to have been three boxes of curtains and one with sheets.
In his explanation, Laiu told the court that he had passed through all the security checks and when he was at the gate, someone asked him to take the bag onto the plane and he complied.
Laiu was fined $500,000 or six months at hard labour on each count and was also sentenced to a mandatory 3 1/2 years in jail.
