LUSAKA MAN JAILED 15 YEARS FOR TRAFFICKING IN COCAINE

LUSAKA High Court judge Gregory Phiri on Friday sentenced a 56-year-old
Lusaka resident to 15 years from the earlier seven years for trafficking in
cocaine following a failed appeal.

This was in a case in which Ibrahim Bhana appealed to the High Court
against the seven years sentence he was given by the magistrate's court for
drug trafficking.

Bhana is alleged to have placed 0.378 grammes of cocaine in bread and sent
one of his female colleagues to take it to two prisoners who were also
convicted of drug trafficking offences at Lusaka Central Prison.

Delivering the judgment, judge Phiri said the seven year jail sentence
meted out by the trial magistrate was too lenient considering the
circumstances surrounding the offence and substituted the earlier sentence
with the maximum 15 years.

Judge Phiri said prisons were confined places where society expected
offenders to reform and became law-abiding citizens for the betterment of
the community.

"We all expect to have a better country when prisoners reform," he said.
"Taking a hardcore prohibited drug like cocaine, in whatever quantity, to
inmates in prison for their use is the most aggravating fact in the entire
regime of the drug offences. In this particular case, the cocaine was taken
to two particular inmates who are on record of having been incarcerated on
drug related offences. The facts are extreme in themselves such that a
sentence of seven years is manifestly inadequate that it induces a sense of
shock."

"The circumstances are so extreme and uncommon calling for an equally
extreme and uncommon punishment. For this reason, I quash the sentence of
seven years and in its place I will inflict the severest offence of 15
years imprisonment with hard labour. Since the appellant has been on bail
pending appeal, the sentence shall run with effect from the date of being
re-admitted into custody. For this purpose, bail pending appeal is revoked
and a warrant of arrest shall be issued forthwith."

Bhana's lawyer Robert Simeza argued that the trial magistrate erred in law
by convicting their client on uncollaborated evidence and basing it on
circumstantial evidence.

He urged the court to acquit Bhana.

However, judge Phiri dismissed all the grounds of appeal.