THE Supreme Court has upheld a stiff prison sentence imposed by the Nicosia district court on a drug dealer for the supply of 0.452 grams of heroin, thus paving the way for other district judges to follow suit on similar situations.
Twenty-four-year-old Andreas Modestou was sentenced on March 29 last year to two-and-a-half years in jail for two counts of possession of a class A drug with intent to supply and supply of a class A drug – 0.452 grams of heroin.
The first hearing was held on March 9, 2004, almost two years after Modestou had been arrested while fighting with a client when the deal turned sour.
The maximum sentence for the two offences is life imprisonment and/or a heavy fine.
The case, however, was referred to the district court, which does not have jurisdiction to impose sentences over five years on each of the charges.
Judge Nicolaos Sandis sentenced the defendant to two-and-a-half years in jail for each of the charges while at the same time activating a previous suspended 45-day sentence for causing actual bodily harm.
The defendant appealed the sentence, arguing it was too strict.
But the Supreme Court, which judged that it was not even necessary to hear the other side, ruled that the appeal was groundless.
“We fully adopt the lengthy and detailed decision of the district court, which took into account all the relative factors in the assessment of the penalty and arrived to a balanced, not to say, lenient sentence,” the Supreme Court said.
The Supreme Court ratified Sandis’ decision and effectively gave district courts the direction they should follow in the future.
In his decision, Sandis noted that the charges concerned a small quantity of heroin, a fact, which was taken into consideration to the defendant’s benefit.
“On the other hand, however, this does not mean that the small quantity would be a catalyst either towards classifying the seriousness of the offences or towards defining the punishment,” the judge said.
Sandis took into consideration the defendant’s age, he was 22 at the time, as well as his personal and family circumstances.
Modestou had been a drug user but he was clean at the time of the offence.
But Sandis stressed that he could not ignore the fact that the defendant, though not a drug kingpin, committed particularly serious crimes aimed at making money while in the last stages of probation imposed by the Nicosia Assizes Court.
