A 31-YEAR-old man was yesterday jailed for four years for the possession and trafficking of 285 Ecstasy tablets.
Kantan Caka was arrested in Nicosia around a year ago and was charged with the possession of a class ‘A’ drug and possession with intent to supply.
Caka was intercepted by drug squad officers in the parking lot across the road from the Holiday Inn in Nicosia city centre, the court heard.
Officers searched him and discovered two plastic bags containing the tablets.
When officers explained why they were arresting him, Caka apparently told them: “It’s 290 Ecstasy pills and I brought them on this side if I can find anyone to sell them.”
In his testimony, Caka said he got the tablets from an unknown person in the occupied areas.
The defendant is a sailor and belongs to a family of 12 children, which initially came from Paphos but now live in Kyrenia.
Before his arrest, he stayed in a yacht docked in the port of Kyrenia with his fiancée from Kazakhstan, the court heard.
Reading from the welfare office’s report, the president of the Assizes, Stelios Nathanael, noted that the defendant had left school early and initially helped his father, who was a fisherman.
At the age of 25, he started a relationship with a Finnish woman, which lasted for a year.
After the break-up she returned to Finland and had a child whom the defendant has not recognised, the judge said.
Evangelos Himonas, defending, pointed out that his client had recognised his child, though not legally.
He stressed Caka’s co-operation with the authorities and claimed that the drugs were for his client’s own use, though he admitted that, if he had found any buyers, he would have sold some in order to get some of the money he paid for them.
Himonas suggested the court should show leniency regarding the second charge since there was no specific buyer for the drugs.
But the court stressed that the conditions surrounding the offences left little room for mitigating circumstances, which, in different circumstances, might be taken into consideration, though the court did take into account the defendant’s confession.
But, after considering all the factors, “it is judged that the proper sentence should be immediate imprisonment” whose length should be as balanced as possible — “to punish the defendant, but not destroy him” the ruling said.
Caka was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail for the first charge and four years for the second one.
The terms run concurrently and start from the day of his detainment – November 26, 2003.
